Devotional Thought of the Day:

Jabin’s army had nine hundred iron chariots, and for twenty years he made life miserable for the Israelites, until finally they begged the LORD for help.  Judges 4:3 CEV

Jesus told the people another story:
What will a woman do if she has ten silver coins and loses one of them? Won’t she light a lamp, sweep the floor, and look carefully until she finds it? 9 Then she will call in her friends and neighbors and say, “Let’s celebrate! I’ve found the coin I lost.”
10 Jesus said, “In the same way God’s angels are happy when even one person turns to him.”  Luke 15:8-10

790    Don’t you long to shout to those youths who are bustling around you: Fools! Leave those worldly things that shackle the heart and very often degrade it…. Leave all that and come with us in search of Love!

I see the scenario played out in Judges all the time. People who need help, who refuse to ask for it from God. They go years, even decades without praying about things, without looking to God from whom all help must come.

We struggle along, depressed, moaning about the brokenness we have to endure. Despising our own weakness, and yet, for some reason, unable to cry out for help.

We forget all the illustrations of God, who like the woman, search diligently for the coin. (Think one worth $500)  Or we think it is about us, trying to find the answer we cannot provide. We think we have to get to God!

We struggle with the fact that we have ot deal with this sin, or that anxiety, this problem, that temptation, and then we can walk into God’s presence.

I want to struggle with St. Josemaria, “Fools! (myself included) drop all that stuff that is crushing you! look – a cross! You are loved! I am loved. (Josemaria knows it is not a hard or long search – for God is the one searching us out, even as He did Adam and Eve!)

For only in that place, where we are stunned by His love, can we see Him at work in our lives, and in this broken world!  We need to start our days there, we need to start over and over again there, in the place where we find life. We need to run there when things are broken.

In Christ! Living out what the sacraments help us experience – the incredibly, intimate, love of God for you and I, revealed in all that is Jesus Christ!

Lord, in the midst of our brokenness, help us redefine life based on this simple truth.  You love us more than we can ever know!  AMEN!

Escriva, Josemaria. The Way . Scepter Publishers. Kindle Edition.