Let go and Let God

LETTING TO AND LETTING GOD

Many people can’t bring themselves to trust God.  They love God, but to turn everything over to God and let go is beyond them.  The reason for that attitude is often a lack of true knowledge of God.  We are told and say we believe, that God is love, but we don’t trust it.  We can only learn how to trust God by getting to know him better.  So how does one go about getting to know God?  

God has literally laid himself bare for us from the beginning through the Crucifixion.

Through his prophets, God has called out to the human race to hear and listen to his voice.  Over and over God has reached out with his love, laying out a path for us to follow to find peace and joy in this world only to be ignored by those whom he loves.

Our best resource for getting to know God and his love is through Jesus.  When we think of Jesus, we think of a person of compassion, unselfish, gentle, kind and full of love.  Jesus told us more than once “If you have seen me, you have seen the Father.”  He does not say, “If you have seen me, you kind of see the Father.”  Oh, no, he says you have seen the Father.  Jesus’ act of love in giving himself to death was the final proof of the love of God and yet we still harbor doubts.

In his book, The Shack Revisited, C. Baxter Kruger states,  “In God there is no hunger that needs to be filled, only plenteousness that desires to give.”  Further on he states, “There are no conditions, no reasons and no way that can we can cause the blessed Trinity to stop loving us.”  If only we could truly understand and believe it, we would have no trouble putting our total trust in God. 

We get on a bus or a plane or a train and trust the driver to get us where we are going while that driver has no personal connection to us whatsoever, but we deny that trust to the One who wishes to guide us through a more important journey and loves us above all. 

God is not angry or diminished by our lack of trust. It is only we who are the losers.

Prayer is the first step in growing in knowledge of God, reading the Gospels is the second and the first hand accounts of the power of God in the Epistles the third.

As our knowledge of God increases, we will diminish the power of our ego and finally let God sustain us.

Blessings,

Carol Lemelin OPA

THAT SIGH

THAT SIGH

The Pharisees were pushing Jesus for a sign to prove to them he was sent from God.  Jesus sighed from the depths of his being and said, “Why does this generation always need a sign?  There will be no sign.”  With that he got in a boat and went to the other side of the lake, putting distance between them.  These Pharisees wanted a sign like the 4^th of July fireworks but he refused.  He knew that whatever he did would not convince them, so determined were they to stop him from preaching to the people. 

That sigh, so deep it seemed to come from the depths of his being, is the one we, too, have been known to breathe when we’ve failed to explain, educate, clarify or defend anything to someone who simply will not even try to understand.  That sigh we understand so well, which says, in effect, “I give up”, once again reminds us how close Jesus is to us.  At those times when we are ready to give up, this sustains us. Either we will actually give up or determine to try again, but whichever choice we make, we don’t do it alone.  The old gospel song reminds us, “What a friend we have in Jesus.”

After Jesus is in the boat, there arises a dispute about the apostles not having brought enough bread.  When Jesus tells them to avoid the leaven of the Pharisees they misunderstand and think he is talking about bread.  At that point, Jesus becomes irritated and says,  “Why do you conclude that it is because you have no bread?  Do you not yet understand? Are your hearts hardened? Do you have eyes and not see, ears and not hear?”  When Jesus mentions the leaven of the Pharisees he is referring to their way of adding to the word of God things that change the meaning of those sacred words as leaven changes bread. 

All in all, it was a very frustrating day for Jesus and we see and understand.  When those days come to us, its good to remember this day in the life of Christ and follow his example, to move on, to forgive and forget.  We must show that we hear and understand.  That we have eyes and do see and ears and do hear.  We can pledge to keep faithful to our faith in God and live to do his will.  

Blessings,

Carol Lemelin OPA

LOOKING FOR THE GOOD

LOOKING FOR THE GOOD

Imagine, if you will, what it was like in Israel in the time of Christ.  The people were under the control of their religious leaders, the Romans, and centuries of traditions.

Then, along comes this man from Galilee who seems to have no regard for any of that.  He walks and talks to everyone without regard for their station in life, their sex, their infirmities or any of things that divide people.  Instead, He appears to look for the good in everyone. Beggars at the side of the road, used to being spat upon, are flummoxed when He speaks kindly to them.  They can hardly believe the stories they were hearing about His actually curing people so they didn’t have to beg. 

This new kind of Rabbi who looked right at you or, some would say through you, was creating a buzz unlike anything before Him.  As He moved through the region, even into Samaria where no self-respecting Jew ever went on purpose, He did the same thing.  Despite the comments about how inappropriate He was, there was no denying the up swell of hope in the people.  An official came and asked Him to cure his ill daughter and Jesus looks him straight in the eye and says, “Take me to her.”

A Roman officer asks him to cure his servant and Jesus looks him straight in the eye and says, “Take me to him.”  A Samaritan woman points out that they worship in one place and Jews in another both thinking they are right.  Jesus looks her straight in the eye and says, “The hour is coming when people will worship the Father in spirit and in truth.”    This habit of Jesus, looking straight at people, was disconcerting, but how would He have read their hearts if He looked at their feet?

During these weeks of mourning in our family, I have looked into the eyes of many people.  I saw concern, love, grief, understanding and empathy in their eyes.  Most of those people probably don’t realize how those unguarded looks carried us through the days.

If we want a better world, we have to start with the people in it. We are surrounded by people.  Some we know, most we don’t, but we have a habit of not looking right at them. We might not be able to read their hearts as Jesus did, but the old saying that the eyes are the mirror of the soul is not wrong.  You can tell a lot about people looking at their eyes.

 Jesus did not have some magic formula. He just looked directly at people.   We can do that much. We don’t have to concern ourselves about what we will see looking directly at someone, because what we see isn’t important, it’s what they see in our eyes that matters.  We ought to be able to emulate Jesus and just look directly at people acknowledging their existence and hope that our love of Christ will shine through.

Blessings,

Carol Lemelin OPA

                 

LET YOUR LIGHT SHINE

LET THE LIGHT SHINE

In St. Paul’s second letter to Timothy, (1:6-7) we see the depth of the love Paul had for his disciple.  There is a quality to the words that are reminiscent of those a father might say to a son.  Timothy was young, but Paul saw in him what God saw in Paul.  God knew that Paul had the strength of character and determination that would be necessary to spread the Gospel once he was convinced of it’s rightness.  Timothy apparently was shy and lacking the self-confidence of Paul and so Paul wrote vigorous encouragement.  He exhorts Timothy, “I remind you to stir into flame the gift of God… for God did not give us a spirit of cowardice but rather of power and love and self-control.”  It worked, since Timothy was eventually Bishop of Ephesus.

In Mark 4:21-25 Jesus says something along the same lines when he says, “ Is a lamp to be hidden under a bed or a basket and not on a lampstand?  He who has ears to ear ought to hear.”

Like all scripture, these words are meant for all of us.   It doesn’t matter what was going in Ephesus or Galilee when these words were spoken.  What matters is how they relate to our lives here and now.  Happily we don’t face persecution because of our faith, but we, like the early church are different, or at least, we are supposed to be.    The early Christians brought attention to themselves because they lived in a community tied together by their faith in Jesus. They eschewed any law or custom that discriminated against the poor, the widow and the lame.  They made whatever sacrifice was necessary to help them.  Imagine having to hide because you are helping the poor or sheltering a widow?  So strong was their faith in Jesus that they regarded persecution as an honor.  Instead of repelling people, their light of faith drew even more people. Soon the community was shockingly diverse with people of every background following Christ. 

The light of faith knows no race or color or ethnicity.  To believe in God; to trust in God is what gives the Christian the power and love and self-control needed to spread the message of the gospel.  The light from within us is the presence of the Holy Spirit and that cannot be quenched. We do have the power to let that light shine or to keep it hidden however.  We know what Jesus wants us to do, for he when said, “He who has ears to hear ought to hear” He was speaking directly to us.

Stir into flame that gift of God that dwells within you and let it shine for all to see.

Blessings,

Carol Lemelin, OPA