INTERIOR FAITH

INTERNAL FAITH

Tear doubt out of your heart! Never allow doubt to hinder you from praying to God by possibly thinking to yourself, “How can I ask anything from the Lord? How can I receive anything from him since I have sinned so much against him?

Never think like this!  Instead, turn to the Lord with your whole heart. Pray to him without wavering and you will come to know his great mercy. He will never desert you. He will fulfill your heart’s request because God is not like people, who harbor grudges. No, he does not remember evil, and he has compassion for what he has made.  

Those are the words of Harmas, a first century Christian, written around 140AD. 

I was struck by his supreme confidence in God’s mercy.  Jesus said that whoever is not against us is for us. That means that, despite what one might profess, there is no neutrality or indifference when it comes to God, since God dwells within. 

Think now of how Harmas reached this conclusion.  He may have read the writings of the Apostles or heard from other people, but until he felt it inside he could never have been so sure. 

Faith that is only the result of teachings by others is not faith. True faith is interior. True faith is the product of the connection between a person and the Spirit of God, that is, the recognition and acceptance of the presence of God within.  

The question I have now, is how did we get so far afield from the conclusions of Harmas?  When I was growing up, sin was talked about a lot.  We were constantly reminded of our sins and how easy it was to offend God.  We were told that God would be angry with us and that we had to go to confession a lot and that we were always on the brink of hellfire.  I say this with absolute certainty, no one ever told me about the infinite mercy of God. 

If we, whose faith is interior, do not relay this message to everyone, the world will go on mistrusting God and fearing God and never knowing that he is forever loving, compassionate and merciful.  That he does not countenance violence against people in his name.  That fear of him means awe and respect, not terror.

It’s not complicated.  It’s really simple.  God is. We are.  God is in everything and the Spirit of God is at work in the world all the time.  We can only reach this level of belief through prayer, which means our words, no one else’s, to God within. 

Once we consciously form that bond, it can never be changed or destroyed.  

It is and always was God’s will for us. 

Blessings,

Carol Lemelin OPA

UNTETHERED

UNTETHERED

There are three kinds of tethers. One is a line of rope or chain that restricts movement.  One is a line to which one is attached for security. One is a virtual line, by which we are attached to someone or something, usually voluntarily, but not always. 

In 1984 two astronauts made an untethered spacewalk outside their ship. Imagine being in outer space where there is virtually nowhere to go and depend on a contraption (jet pack) for your safety. When I read that, I thought, “Who would be so crazy as to do that? “

Still, these astronauts made more than one of those spacewalks during the duration of their journey.  This means they trusted absolutely, not just their equipment, but also the people who supplied it.  No one who has ever had any machinery in life is under the impression that everything works perfectly all the time.  I had a snow blower that even had an electric starter and it still didn’t start 50% of the time! 

I get anxious if I have to travel more than an hour from home.  As a child I was terrified of getting lost.  As a mom, I took every possible precaution to keep my children from getting lost.  

If my relationship to God is a tether, I am glad of it.  Knowing that God is always and I repeat, always, present in my life gives me the greatest security of all.  On the three worst days of my life – the day my mother died, the day my husband died and the day my son died, I held on to that tether for dear life.  When I am plagued with those what ifmoments we all have, I remind myself that I am not alone and will get through whatever comes.  

The reason Jesus is so important to the world is because, among other things, He revealed to us the ever-present loving Father.  The ancient peoples knew of God but often misunderstood his true nature, which, by the way, is still an issue today.  Jesus, by his life, his acceptance of his fate and his unswerving obedience to the will of God, was the reflection of the love between them.  This love is available to all and it is that love, which is the material of the tether.  I love that tether.

Blessings,

Carol Lemelin, OPA

MINISTRY NOTE:  

I often preside at wake services and I’m often troubled by the people sitting there.

They don’t seem to be listening so much as waiting for me to finish.  Last week as I ended the reflection, I was wishing they had shown more interest, when I opened what I thought was the exit and walked into a closet! That got a huge laugh and I believe I heard God say, “Careful what you wish for.”

ENDURANCE

ENDURANCE

“You need endurance to do the will of God and receive what he has promised.

 (heb: 10:36)

A couple of clichés occurred to me when I read those words. “Truer words were never spoken” and “You can take that to the bank!”

In order for endurance to even be an issue in Christian life, it means one must be constantly working to spread the message of Christ.  We have to have that on our minds most of the time and that takes practice.  The letter to the Hebrews is a primer for evangelization. (Note: I don’t like that word. It’s too cold for an endeavor which requires so much love and patience.)

It is pretty obvious that the whole focus of the early Christians was fearlessly sharing the Good News. Listen to how they speak to one another. 

“I urge you to stir into flame the gifts of God.”   

“So strengthen your drooping hands and weak knees. Make straight paths for your feet.”

“Consider how Jesus endured such opposition from sinners, in order that you may not grow weary and lose heart.”

There are a lot more of these confidence-boosting sentences in Scripture.  The early Christians were inspired by the freedom they experienced once they stopped being afraid of God.  They feared God, because despite God’s protestations of love, he was continuously depicted as vengeful and quick to anger.   But, the People of The Way, as they were called, were serious about letting others know that Jesus Christ lived and died for them. His entire life on earth was motivated by an intense desire to be the link to the Father the world so desperately needed. 

Nothing has changed.  The world needs to know God as loving, merciful, approachable and above all, forgiving.  Jesus said, “If you have seen me, you have seen the Father.”  Begin there.  If people know Jesus at all, they need to know that fact. The Father is compassionate, loving, forgiving and thoroughly invested in his creation just as Jesus is.  

Do we, of the 21^stCentury need to ask ourselves if we have that sense of total joy in knowing the true nature of God?  If we don’t, we need to work on it and if we do, we need to share it.  Either way endurance will be required. 

Blessings on us all as we strive to do His will.

Carol Lemelin OPA

BELIEVER OR FOLLOWER?

BELIEVER OR FOLLOWER?

“At times our evangelical fervor has come at the cost of spiritual formation. For this reason, we can end up with a church full of believers, but followers of Jesus can be hard to come by.”  Richard Rohr

How deep are we willing to go to really know Christ?  We say we love him. We pray to him constantly.  We thank him when things go our way. No one can say we don’t believe in him.  But that is not the question.  The question is how willing are we to follow him?  To follow him does not mean just acknowledging him, it means living like him. It means that compassion should motivate everything we say and do. 

If we are really seeking to come into a living relationship with Jesus, we are met with the central challenge Christianity hands us. Indeed, how do we put on the mind of Christ? How do we seethrough his eyes? How do we feel through his heart? How do we learn to respond to the world with that same wholeness and healing love he had? 

A man once told me he couldn’t follow Jesus, even though he believed in Him, because Jesus said,  “When someone strikes you on one cheek, turn to him the other.”

The man said that was too wimpy. If we take Jesus’ words to mean we should stand still and be beaten, of course, it seems absurd.  But once we realize that Jesus was clarifying for the Jewish people the true meaning of an eye for an eye. (A code they had lived by for centuries) That it does not mean return hurt for hurt. For example, if your neighbor kills your cow, you do not have God’s permission to kill his son.  Responding to anger with calm could change everything.  The power of the Spirit takes over. Jesus didn’t just say it, he did it on the Cross and forgave his murderers.

When Jesus forgave his killers, the Centurion was moved to recognize that Jesus is the Christ. We have accepted his statement as justification for our faith when in fact it is a statement of his own, that he is ready to actually follow Christ. If he was the Roman whose servant Jesus saved, and I believe he was, they had a connection. He knew Jesus. Jesus was real to him. 

Jesus is not real to many people. He has been lifted to such heights that he seems unapproachable and yet the followers of Jesus persevered because he was real to them.  It’s all there, the Real Jesus, waiting for us to delve into the scriptures to find its deepest meanings and to guide us to a life in Jesus. There is no reason to be timid about it.  It isn’t as though Jesus would lead us astray. There will be questions, of course, but that is part of the journey.  When questions arise, head for Google. 

There are so many great books to aid in this journey.  Beautiful Outlaw by John Eldredge  – Who is This Man? by John Ortberg – The Jesus I Never Knew by Phillip Yancy.  All available on Amazon. 

Blessings,

Carol Lemelin OPA