Fighting the Good Fight

Once you awakened to faith in Jesus Christ, you need to follow the path that God has chosen for you. Start with prayer, prayer is the start of everything and not just memorized prayer but talk to Him and listen to Him.  Silence is an important part of prayer.  Listen to what God tells you by looking at the world around you and listen to those near you for God speaking to you through them.

Be wary if you focus on the sins that others are committing, it is a great way for Satan to distract you.  Do all things out of an abundance of love and compassion.  Those around you should be able to tell from your actions that you are a follower of Christ.  The shouldn't feel judged or hated by you because of who you follow.

Now you are ready to fight the good fight.  Go out into the world and make a more loving and compassionate place.  Bring the Beloved to this you find and have no fear.  He is with you if you act out of love because He is Love.

The Holy Family

I think of the Holy Family as my inspiration.  Mary was conceived without sin but she still was a human and Joseph was just like us.  Through their love for Christ they did amazing things they never thought they would do.

Joseph and Mary lived in a very small town and lived simple lives of labor until the day Christ came into their lives.  After that they traveled, met wise men, and for at least a while were the talk of their village.  Having Christ to love must have been so strengthening.  Their faith, especially Joseph's must have bloomed.

Mary went on to travel with Jesus and went through all she did with his death and resurrection and ended her life in a foreign land.  God's love will lead you, if you let it to a much bigger life.  That life may have a lot of sorrow and difficulties but it will be a life worth living and it won't be the life you thought you would have.  All you have to do is follow.

Hungering for Righteousness

I think there are two ways people think of when they think of righteousness.  Some people take the view of hungering for righteousness in the world in general.  This is good, wanting people to act according to Gods law and wanting our institutions to act in the same way is correct.  We fall short when we do this without compassion and without being righteous ourselves.  There are those who live lives that shame us in their beauty. love, and righteousness, Mother Theresa and St Francis are good examples.  Then you have busy bodies who look for the bad in everything and are so miserable they want to make everyone as miserable as they are.  Don't be that person.

Give drink to those thirsty for justice

Now that it is after Christmas and the Christ child is here, what does that mean?  We have opened our gift of salvation but what does that mean, what does that look like in our lives?  Think of Matthew chapter 25, now we have to look for the Beloved everywhere.  We have to take action.  We have to feed the hungry, give drink to the thirsty, visit the sick and in prison, shelter the homeless, and clothe the naked.  But God doesn't want us to just see to their physical needs.  We have to give drink to those who thirst for justice.  Feed those who hunger for peace.  It won't be easy, but it is so worth it because He is there.  He is that hungry senior at the food pantry and the woman disrespected by a racist in Walmart.  In fact He is also present in that racist who needs to be saved by your actions as well.  That person needs to be taught love by being shown the love you have for the person they are victimizing.  We are called to be a people of action working in the world to bring about the kingdom of God.  Open you eyes and look for Christ.

Adoration

Oh my Lord, as I sit here and gaze on you I realize that you are my strength and the source of all I am.  I am nothing without you.  All gifts and all wisdom comes from you.  Without you I can do nothing and I am nothing, except what you have made me.  That is why my life doesn't always work because I try to be other than how you created me.  I try to do what I think is my will, what others say will make me happy, but I am only happy in you.  When I think of what my life was away from you how small and mean it was, and then I see how beautiful it is now, I can't imagine living for only myself again.  A selfish life is a small life, thank you for giving me a big life.

The Wrapped Gift

Today, Christ is still the wrapped present under the tree.  He is still wrapped in the flesh of His mother.  We sit like little children longing to open that gift, the most beautiful gift we have seen.  Imagine a tree where the only gifts under the tree are things, we are so lucky our gift is salvation and love.

But do we really ever open that gift?  Do we stare at it and decide we know what's in it so we don't have to open it?  I think most of us never really open that gift.  We've read the Bible, we know God and what he asks of us.  We know it, we don't have to open the gift.  If we did open the gift that is the Beloved, He might ask something of us.  He might ask us to change or give us the courage to do what other people wouldn't like.  Opening that gift might be scary.

So we don't open it.  We show other people, look I have the gift of salvation, I must be doing things right.  We think because we have some knowledge that we know what God is calling us to do, but if we never really open our gift we keep Him from truly calling us.

If we open the gift we invite Him into our hearts and allow Him to rule there.  We become radicalized with Love.  We can truly do all things in Him but we have to open that present and allow Him to do things through us.

How do we know that it is the Beloved working through us and not the deceiver?  There are many people in the world today who think they are doing Gods will who are not.  We know we do Gods will when we always act out of love and compassion.  If what we do is really for our own gain, or hurts other people then it isn't God's will.  I am not talking about the hurt of showing someone they are wrong, sometimes we have to do that, but even then it has to be done with an abundance of compassion.  Bombing innocent people isn't God's will.  God is Love.  Open the gift and see where it takes you.

Waiting for the Manger

This morning I had planned on spending time in front of our church's nativity scene.  I wanted to sit and gaze at the empty manger and anticipate the coming of the Lord.  I will have to do it tonight instead.  It is still dark out and the lights that shine on the scene go out before sunrise so it is too dark.  Instead I am left longing for the manger.  Waiting to see the baby Jesus there.  I close my eyes and I imagine what it sounded like with the animals there and what it smelled like.  Was there a little fire for the Holy Family to see by or just the moonlight?

 I ask Mary if I can hold our Savior.  He is so beautiful.  The funny thing is that the light that comes from Him illuminates the darkness in my soul so I ask Him to heal that darkness and I resolve to not do that sin anymore with His help.

Joseph is the one I feel closest to in the Holy Family, he is like me.  He wasn't conceived without original sin like Mary was and yet he was chosen by God.  God had a job for him to do and he said yes.  His yes may not have been as profound as Mary's yes in the salvation of the world but it was significant.