Monday, October 10,
2016
Here are some random thoughts from a collection I’m
working on.
Abandonment
Because of my own sin, I have cut myself off from Him, and
then I accuse Him of abandoning me.
Abortion
Hell hates goodness. It sneers at
it. It lashes out at it. It tears children from their mothers' wombs and then
convinces the lawmakers to call it legal. Who knows how many potential Mother
Theresa's we have lost, and how hell has rejoiced to see their light
extinguished?
Adam and Eve
Adam and Eve's sin was that after
they listened to the serpent, they made their decision without ever going back
to God to get His side of the story.
Adultery
The new valued more highly than a lifelong matrix of
relationships and responsibilities.
Addiction
“I am the Lord your
God. Have no other gods before me.”
What happens to our lives when our chief sources of motivation,
satisfaction and delight are things that are toxic to our souls? That is what
addiction is about, and addiction is a spiritual sickness that needs to be
treated by spiritual means.
Aging
The time when our prowess has run its course, a time when
our strength is on the wane, strength that was never really ours but only lent
to us for a moment for the good of others, the time when we can feel the pain
of not being able to do what once came to us so easily. The sages tell us that
what we need to learn to do to prepare for such times is to exercise our
strength without over-identifying with it. And then to let go. We are also
warned by the sages that if we fail to learn this lesson, we risk becoming
bitter old people, cursing life, cursing faith, because we placed all our
self-worth in our own abilities rather than in who we are.
Jesus tells Peter of the nature of
his death: When you are older you will be
tied fast and carried off against your will. Many of us, as we grow older, begin to see
this as a prediction of our own deaths, because to a great extent the process
of again carries with it a gradual loss of freedom. Pray we remember that, when
our time comes.
Aliveness
When I give without strings, when I serve without seeking
praise or recompense, when I let God use me and delight in watching his power
at work, when I decrease and see Him increase, when my focus is on his goodness
rather than on my own iniquity, when I listen to the other and not to my own mind’s
infernal chatter, it is then that I am most alive, most energetic, most truly
myself.
When I live out the words, “He who loses himself for my sake
will save it--will discover who he is”--then I have learned that the most real
way of living is to live in the truth of the challenge.
Some more next time.
God bless you!
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