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It’s Monday, and I Don’t Want to Be a Holy or a Hypocrite, so ….
Devotional thought of the day:
4 “Israel, remember this! The LORD—and the LORD alone—is our God. 5 Love the LORD your God with all your heart, with all your soul, and with all your strength. Deuteronomy 6:4-5 (TEV)
1 So then, my friends, because of God’s great mercy to us I appeal to you: Offer yourselves as a living sacrifice to God, dedicated to his service and pleasing to him. This is the true worship that you should offer. 2 Do not conform yourselves to the standards of this world, but let God transform you inwardly by a complete change of your mind. Then you will be able to know the will of God—what is good and is pleasing to him and is perfect. Romans 12:1-2 (TEV)
485 At times, someone has told me: “Father, I feel tired and cold; when I pray or fulfil some other norm of piety, I seem to be acting out a farce…” To that friend, and to you, if you are in the same boat, I answer: A farce?—What an excellent thing, my child! Act out that farce! The Lord is your audience—the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit. The Blessed Trinity is contemplating us in those moments when we are “acting out a farce”. Acting like that in front of God, out of love, in order to please him, when our whole life goes against the grain: how splendid, to be God’s juggler! How marvellous it is to play one’s part for Love, with sacrifice, without any personal satisfaction, just in order to please Our Lord! That indeed is to live for Love. (1)
It is Monday, the day after a long work day. Church was phenomenal, but then a meeting at another church drained me, and knowing that this week is booked absolutely full, I started on my research for this week’s sermons. One of my best friends I woke up early to pray with, as he faces surgery, and I am concerned for several others facing trials. I also have some pounding going on above me, and other issues of frustration.
It’s monday, and my devotional time is dragging. Let me be honest, I am to tired emotionally, I am to anxiety laden, I am overwhelmed and I don’t really feel like writing this blog, or spending time in prayer, or doing my devotional reading. (which happened to be on confession and absolution…. gee thanks God!) I don’t really feel like being holy today. I don’t want to just go through the motions either, and pray, and read and worship. If I don’t feel like being holy, setting apart my time and my life to God, I really don’t want to just fake it.
Maybe I should skip it my devotional time. After all, it’s only one day. I’ll be in a better mood on Wednesday, or maybe Friday. My blog hasn’t been read much anyways (writing this is part of my discipline ), and I’ve got a ton of work to do. Three extra services, picking up some of the work my friend would do, people recovering that I need to visit. I could so easily justify skipping this once….
Then of course, as I drag through my devotions, I found the above quote from St Josemaria. Tell you something – sometimes I really dislike how much a Catholic Saint who died nearly 40 years ago knows me. I feel like a farce, a fraud a hypocrite, even as I highlight things in my reading, and the meditative thoughts the word of God kicks into motion. I warm to some of it – but Leviticus? Really? And the part about worship was awesome, but the paragraph upon paragraph that drudged on through the book of concord…. sigh
Escriva notes that there is an option between doing this enthusiastically, and doing it as a hypocrite. It is doing it, admitting the struggle, but knowing the love and mercy of God the Father that will become more and more apparent. Being a living sacrifice is an act of love, even when I am not sure why I keep going. To strive to keep interested, to strive to see how Christ is revealed, to wait and the blessing He has for us.
To adore Him enough to trust Him that this time together will be cleansing, refreshing, empowering, but most of all peace-filled, glorious rest in His presence. To drink deeply of His love.
it is in the dead times, even perhaps more than the rebellious times, that I need to offer myself to God and keep moving with Him. That I need to realize His presence, His promises, His comfort. The kind of things that are apparent in His word, that the saints who’ve gone before us lived and died to pass down to.
It is such time when saints are made…. and sustained.
So cry out Lord, I trust you, help me to trust you!
And know His answer… come, follow me.
Escriva, Josemaria (2011-01-31). The Forge (Kindle Locations 1858-1866). Scepter Publishers. Kindle Edition.
Tuesday Morning and all Creation groans!
Devotional Discussion thought of the day!
You wake up, role over, hit the snooze alarm, and get out of bed to creaks and groans – not just you voice, but it seems the muscles groan as well… It’s Tuesday, and you wonder how your body will make it to Friday – you body know this as well – why do you think it groans and aches and cracks and creeks!
It’s not always just physical either – if Monday slams home the (false) reality that breaks our restful break from life that is Sunday…Tuesday makes us wonder if we’ll make it to our next sabbath rest! Tuesdays, especially overcast ones like this morning.. ugghhh will this week drag on! It seems like all of Creation is groaning – and yes it is…. so says Paul!
8:20 Against its will, all creation was subjected to God’s curse. But with eager hope, 21 the creation looks forward to the day when it will join God’s children in glorious freedom from death and decay. 22 For we know that all creation has been groaning as in the pains of childbirth right up to the present time. 23 And we believers also groan, even though we have the Holy Spirit within us as a foretaste of future glory, for we long for our bodies to be released from sin and suffering. We, too, wait with eager hope for the day when God will give us our full rights as his adopted children, including the new bodies he has promised us. Romans 8:20-23 (NLT)
The futility we know is just physical, as I noted above – in some ways it is very spiritual. How do we survive? I believe it is as we are reminded by the indwelling of the Holy Spirit – as we are giving foretastes of our future glory, as we are awakened from spiritual slumber and see the glory of God revealed.
One of my favorite authors speaks of such:
” The world is waiting for us to wake up those who are asleep, to encourage the timid, to guide those who have lost their way; in other words, for us to enroll them in the ranks of Christ….. (Escriva, Josemaria . Furrow )
If we need a reminder of the glory that awaits us, such is easily seen as people are woken up, as they are freed from the burdens of their own sin, as they are healed from the sins committed against them, as they too learn to forgive. As they realize they are welcome in the presence of God, as God comes to them and makes them part of His family.
The joy of that moment – that rebirth and renewal as they are baptized (TIt 3:2-6) that moment when they realize the promises of Christ are theirs – as they realize that He does come to them and sups with them… such are the foretastes of glory, as the Spirit reminds us…”you are mine…”
And Tuesdays, we realize, are as full of mercy and grace.. and His resting/basquing in His love… as Sundays…
Godspeed you through this week!
