Worth It

The Christian life isn't always easy... It doesn't always look like the picture below, packaged up in a nice cup of coffee with a book & a rosary on a Saturday morning. Sometimes it DOES feel as peaceful as the picture looks, but it's usually not the norm...
The 'norm' is persevering every single day knowing that it's worth it. That YOU'RE worth it. Because God is. He simply is. And we exist because of His love.
The Christian life is messy; following God's will is sometimes difficult; our vocations aren't always easy. Life requires sacrifice in all of its forms. But life is FULL. Full of life-giving love & grace. And while it doesn't always feel like the thousand words a cute photo represents, there are a thousand words waiting to be spoken to your heart by the Heart of God. So with or without your cup of joe, with or without joy in your soul, sit with God. Because you're worth it. <3

Walking on Water - can you tread the waves?

*Photo: "Our Refuge and Strength" by artist, Morgan Weistling

Matthew 14:22-33

22 Then he made the disciples get into the boat and precede him to the other side, while he dismissed the crowds. 23 After doing so, he went up on the mountain by himself to pray. When it was evening he was there alone. 24 Meanwhile the boat, already a few miles offshore, was being tossed about by the waves, for the wind was against it. 25 During the fourth watch of the night,[a] he came toward them, walking on the sea. 26 When the disciples saw him walking on the sea they were terrified. “It is a ghost,” they said, and they cried out in fear. 27 At once [Jesus] spoke to them, “Take courage, it is I;[b] do not be afraid.” 28 Peter said to him in reply, “Lord, if it is you, command me to come to you on the water.” 29 He said, “Come.” Peter got out of the boat and began to walk on the water toward Jesus. 30 But when he saw how [strong] the wind was he became frightened; and, beginning to sink, he cried out, “Lord, save me!” 31 Immediately Jesus stretched out his hand and caught him, and said to him, “O you of little faith,[c] why did you doubt?” 32 After they got into the boat, the wind died down. 33 [d]Those who were in the boat did him homage, saying, “Truly, you are the Son of God.” –New American Standard – Revised Edition (NABRE)

What happens to Peter when he focuses on the waves beneath him instead of Jesus in front of Him? We know that he starts to sink and cries out to the Lord to help him. But what happens specifically between Peter and the waves? He becomes consumed by them. If we focus on the waves in our life, instead of on Jesus who causes us to tread over them, we become consumed by them; they overtake us. The waves literally overtake Peter, and Jesus says, ‘’oh you of little faith, why did you doubt?’ Peter doubted Jesus’ ability to sustain him on the water – and so do we.

The waves didn’t have to overtake Peter and they don’t have to overtake us either. If our focus remains fixed intently on Jesus – intently – we can overcome the waves, we can rise above them. If we fix our eyes on Jesus, He enables us to tread over the waves around us – whatever they may be or whatever form they take; waves of sin, temptation, anger, pain, suffering, relationship difficulties, work difficulties, illness, weakness, etc.

This is the case, and we know this – we know to keep our eyes on Jesus, yet, we still feel consumed by the waves in our lives. Why? Because we equate conquering the waves with having them disappear. We don’t fix our eyes on Jesus, trusting Him to overcome them, trusting that He will sustain us. We look at the waves and then back at Jesus saying ‘fix this’. We don’t want to overcome the waves, we want Jesus to take them away. What exactly does this mean from a spiritual perspective? What is happening in our souls when we react this way? It means that we are rejecting grace. Jesus says ‘look at me. I will give you the sustenance you need to walk over this, to overcome it and not be consumed’ and we say ‘but Jesus, that’s not what I want. I don’t want to rise above it, I just want You to take it away’. In this, we are still focused on the wave – whatever it is – and its role, not on Jesus’ role. Jesus says, ‘here, take My help’, and we say ‘no’. We don’t want to overcome the problem, we want Him to eradicate the problem for us, to make it disappear.

In this we display such a gaping lack of trust. As Peter doubted that Jesus could sustain him walking over the waves, we too doubt His ability to sustain us. It’s easy to trust God if He does what we want. It’s easy to trust Him when the waters are calm and we can walk contently toward Him, undistracted. But when the waters rage, how much more this needs to increase our trust. And yet, we doubt; we doubt the all-mighty, all-powerful God. Is He worthy of such great trust? Can He truly help us navigate over such tumultuousness? Of course He can, but the problem is: we don’t let ourselves believe it. We don’t want to think He can really make it that easy; not just possible, but actually easy. We refuse to accept this because we just want it to go away. He can help us, but we have to let Him. If we don’t want Him to do that for us, then He won’t; not because He doesn’t want to, but because we’ve chosen not to accept His help. We’ve chosen to reject Him.

When we reject Jesus, we reject pure goodness and so side with evil. We choose to let the darkness of the waves overtake us. We let the devil win because we crowd Jesus out. We keep the waves between ourselves and Jesus. We keep the waves above us, sinking beneath them.

Even when we know this, it can still be hard to change this attitude. I know that I can still consciously choose to live that way, not wanting to fight for goodness, tired of battling the tumultuousness. I see it as some huge effort and don’t want to expend the energy to keep on top of the waves. And this is because of one reason: I am relying on myself. And when I do, I will surely sink. I don’t rely on God’s strength, I rely on my own and I have none; none outside of what God gives me which is all we can rely on – His strength. And so I see this change of attitude as a huge difficulty, but the reality is, it’s not that difficult if we draw our strength from Him. He can make it so that it is easy to walk over the waves. He reaches down to pull us up out of the water and walk over it again… will we reach and grab His hand?

We have to choose Jesus. And I know for me, I can much too easily focus on the waves in my own life. I’m stubborn enough to choose to focus on them because I feel justified in my anger against them. I feel I have a right to focus on them because they are there, they are difficult, and Jesus won’t take them away. Even when I know that Jesus supersedes them, I just want to keep pointing at them and saying: ‘But…!!!! This!!’ Satan wants me to focus on the waves because then I lose sight of Jesus and I start to sink. This steals my joy and causes such great spiritual suffocation, but I again, feel so justified in being upset with them that I choose to let the devil bate me, and I don’t fight for my view of Jesus. I give in and I give up, and I get tired of the fight. But this is because I am trying to survive in drowning conditions under my own power, just wanting the difficulty to go away, not trusting that Jesus can lift me above it all. I don’t truly rely on Him. And when I am really this stuck and feel like I still struggle knowing all of these realities, and yet still not wanting to rise up, feeling the pressure of the water pushing me farther down, I pray – simply and slowly. I ask God for the grace for me to be able to choose Him because I can’t even do that on my own. I pray for the grace to simply have the wherewithal not reject His grace, to not reject the help that He offers me. I pray for the grace to not give into the darkness. I pray for the grace to be willing to accept His help.

We don’t need Jesus to take our waves away; we just need Jesus. Then the waves will no longer overpower us because of our attention on Jesus. We might even become totally unaware that the waves even exist.

Lord Jesus, you know how easily we can let waves overtake us and not even care because we feel so worn, and so tired of trying that we just settle into our misery. Sometimes we come so close as to see You reaching down to lift us up and still we don’t reach out to grasp Your hand. Lord, we repent of having refused Your graces, of rejecting Your love and Your help, knowing that this has only made it more difficult for us to fulfill Your will. We repent of having willfully taken our eyes off of You, causing us to be consumed by the difficulties around us, stealing our joy. We cry to you now for help, O Lord, renewing our trust in Your ability to sustain us and lift us above every obstacle. Grant us the grace of being able to willingly accept your grace and your help. We stretch out our hand and grab hold of Yours, to rise above those waves that want to overtake us. Keep our eyes firmly fixed on You, O Savior, that we become so enveloped by Your presence and Your power, so as to not even be concerned with how we are to cross over the raging waters, but to have complete confidence in Your love for us and Your power to sustain us over all. Amen.

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Scripture Passage footnotes:

1. 14:25 The fourth watch of the night: between 3 A.M. and 6 A.M. The Romans divided the twelve hours between 6 P.M. and 6 A.M. into four equal parts called “watches.”
2. 14:27 It is I: see note on Mk 6:50.
3. 14:31 You of little faith: see note on Mt 6:30. Why did you doubt?: the verb is peculiar to Matthew and occurs elsewhere only in Mt 28:17.
4. 14:33 This confession is in striking contrast to the Marcan parallel (Mk 6:51) where the disciples are “completely astounded.”

How Can We Know the Way?

A reflection on John 14:1-12

“Thomas said to him, “Master, we do not know where you are going; how can we know the way?” Jesus said to him, “I am the way and the truth and the life…” ~John 14: 5-6

Sometimes we feel lost. Life has its ups and downs, its twists and turns and we aren’t always sure of how everything is working out or where exactly we are at on the journey.

As Christians, our first prerogative, our main goal & aim, is to get to Heaven. Sometimes we get bogged down with earthly cares and worries and lose sight of the goal. Sometimes we have our eyes fixed on that goal, but feel our own weakness and sinfulness that deters us from that path to eternal life that we strive to remain on. We ask questions and seek answers to life’s most difficult and probing questions. We seek meaning, purpose, and direction in our lives. And Jesus tells us where we can find all of the answers - He IS the answer. He tells us that He IS the way, the truth, and the life. If we seek Him, and live our lives centered around Him, we are on ‘the way’, we have ‘the truth’, and we have ‘the life’, we have Jesus. We have everything.

Knowing this, we often still question things that life throws at us, wondering if we are always making the right decisions, if we are truly doing the will of God and not simply our own. I am reminded of a song by a Catholic artist Matthew Baute. There is a line in one of his songs where it is said (as if Jesus if speaking): “If your heart longs to please Me, you’ll be on the right road.”

So the question is: Whom do we long to please?

To whom do we expend the most energy trying to please? Is it our spouse? Our kids? Our boss? Ourselves? Sure, it is good to please our spouse, our kids, our boss, etc. but who do we first long to please? If our heart is first fixed on God and on growing in love for Him and knowledge of His unfathomably deep love for us, then everything else will fall into place; because then all of our actions will be motivated by love for God - not for ourselves or for another person - and all of these other people in our lives will benefit from our union with God and receive God’s love through us. In this, we can then rest in the knowledge that we are ‘on the right road’. So as we go through this week - and every day of our lives - let us remind ourselves to seek Jesus first in ALL things, knowing that He is all we need and is our way to life… our way to ABUNDANT life in this world, and in the eternal life to come.

“...I will come back again and take you to myself, so that where I am you also may be.” ~John 14:3


*Photo Credit: http://melissapagedeutsch.com/paths/

So.... how about that Lenten season?

This is definitely the most ‘off-the-cuff’ blog post that I’ve published thus far… but I sense the need to write, particularly about Lent and where we are at about a third of the way through, having flown through the two-and-a-half weeks that have already passed since Ash Wednesday.

I was asked by someone last week: ‘How is your lent going?’ To which I replied: ‘Pretty good. Yeah, it’s going well.’ Which was true, but upon reflecting a bit more on this question as the next few days went by, I realized that my Lent is going okay, but that I’m really not getting as much out of it as I want to, or probably should. This unexpected reflection led me to take a step back and re-evaluate my Lenten commitments (or lack thereof) and really contemplate what I am doing, what I should be doing, and how I can get more out of this Lenten season. I decided that it’s never too late to make a change; and that just because Lent is well underway already, does not mean that I can’t commit myself to something more, something new, etc. to make the most out of the remaining weeks in this holy season.

To be honest, Lent is hard for me. I used to love Lent and the time of sacrifice, prayer, & depth… it used to be something that I actually looked forward to. However, after having experienced various sufferings and sacrifices that caused me to feel as if my whole life had been Lent for years on end, entering into a season of extra sacrifice and mortification has lost some of the grandeur it once had for me. So for the past few years, I’ve had a difficult time anticipating this season, preparing for it, and fully entering into it. One of the changes I’ve decided to make at this one-third of the way through point, is to give up Facebook for the remainder of Lent. I realized that the time I was spending perusing through it was taking away from time for prayer, or even just constructive time taking care of whatever else in life needs attention. I also made some new commitments concerning my daily prayer, to try and cultivate a more consistent and committed prayer life.

What about you? How is your Lent going? What are you doing well, or what do you need to change or recommit to in order to get more out of this holy season? Remember that it’s never too late to change and never too late to begin again. Don’t settle for thinking that you’ve already blown it and maybe next year will be better. We are not guaranteed next year, but we ARE guaranteed the present moment. We are guaranteed right now. What comes to mind right now that Jesus is calling you to do in order to go deeper this Lent?