Pieces of the Puzzle

It was nearly time for the Jewish Passover, and Jesus went up to Jerusalem. He found in the temple those who were selling cattle, sheep, and doves, as well as those involved in exchanging currency sitting there. He made a whip from ropes and chased them all out of the temple, including the cattle and the sheep. He scattered the coins and overturned the tables of those who exchanged currency. He said to the dove sellers, “Get these things out of here! Don’t make my Father’s house a place of business.” His disciples remembered that it is written, Passion for your house consumes me. ~John 2:13-17 (CEB)

“To find in ourselves what makes life worth living is risky business, for it means that once we know we must seek it. It also means that without it life will be valueless. More than just a few find their most valued selves despite the risk, although the majority seem to be… people who don’t wish to make any trouble- not even the kind that’s expected. The majority shrewdly stay dull to what in them is life and has meaning. A few brave souls, however, do look within and are so moved by what they find that they sacrifice, from then on, whatever is necessary to bring that self into being.” ~From Ordinary People as Monks and Mystics by Marsha Sinetar.

What am I consumed with for God? Do I take any risks for God? Am I brave enough to step out on a limb for God?

Embolden me Heavenly Father to find who I am and what it means to be a child of God. May I not shrink away from understanding Your will for me life. Help me to love mercy, seek justice and walk humbly with you. Amen.

When the magi had departed, an angel from the Lord appeared to Joseph in a dream and said, “Get up. Take the child and his mother and escape to Egypt. Stay there until I tell you, for Herod will soon search for the child in order to kill him.” Joseph got up and, during the night, took the child and his mother to Egypt. He stayed there until Herod died. This fulfilled what the Lord had spoken through the prophet: I have called my son out of Egypt.~ Matthew 2:13-15 (CEB)

“The Christian life is seldom described as a dangerous journey. We are reluctant to speak of the cost of seeking God and the danger of following Christ. It is so much easier and more appealing to speak of the rewards and benefits of the journey of faith. While we must never denigrate the incomparable gifts and rewards of a life of faith, we must also look straight in the eye the cost of every decision to seek God and to follow Jesus Christ.

Jesus experiences the marvelous embrace of God at his baptism. To hear the voice of the One who called all things into existence name Jesus the beloved is gift and reward without comparison. It is a wonderful moment of revelation and loving affirmation. However, the story does not end there, for almost immediately Jesus finds himself in the desert, alone and wrestling with the darkest and fiercest forces of evil.

The earliest of prophets and the saints of this millennium have all discovered that the way of faith is not always the way of ease and comfort. Determining to follow Jesus often leads us into paths we would not choose for ourselves. To say yes to God’s call requires saying no to our own voice and sometimes to the voices of persons and things we love.

For Jesus the call of God had the shadow of the cross upon it. Surely Jesus’ sacrifice on the cross, made for us, makes our sacrifice on the cross unnecessary. Can we then expect to escape the shadow of the cross on our journey? Probably not. But we can pray for and receive guidance and strength that will take us safely and victoriously through the dangers and risks we encounter in saying yes to the call of God in our time.” ~From A Guide to Prayer for All Who Seek God, Rueben P. Job

I thank You Heavenly Father for this journey I am on. Though I find myself wrestling in the dark at times I know that ultimately this journey will bring me into Your light. I pray for guidance and strength that will take me safely and victoriously through all the dangers and risks I will encounter for I know that Your love and affirmation is what I ultimately seek. Amen.

Jesus and his followers came into Jericho. As Jesus was leaving Jericho, together with his disciples and a sizable crowd, a blind beggar named Bartimaeus, Timaeus’ son, was sitting beside the road. When he heard that Jesus of Nazareth was there, he began to shout, “Jesus, Son of David, show me mercy!” Many scolded him, telling him to be quiet, but he shouted even louder, “Son of David, show me mercy!” Jesus stopped and said, “Call him forward.” They called the blind man, “Be encouraged! Get up! He’s calling you.” Throwing his coat to the side, he jumped up and came to Jesus. Jesus asked him, “What do you want me to do for you?” The blind man said, “Teacher, I want to see.” Jesus said, “Go, your faith has healed you.” At once he was able to see, and he began to follow Jesus on the way. ~Mark 10:46-52 (CEB)

“Contemplation breaks us open to ourselves. The fruit of contemplation is self-knowledge, not self-justification. ‘The nearer we draw to God,’ Abba Mateos said, ‘the more we see ourselves as sinners.’ We see ourselves as we really are, and knowing ourselves we cannot condemn the other. We remember with a blush the public sin that made us mortal. We recognize with dismay the private sin that curls within us in fear of exposure. Then the whole world changes when we know ourselves. We gentle it. The fruit of self-knowledge is kindness. Broken ourselves, we bind tenderly the wounds of the other.” ~ From Illuminated Life by Joan Chittister

Heavenly Father, please heal me of any self-justification that leads to blindness. Enable in me the ability of self-knowledge so that I clearly see the path you have for me. Amen.  

“Simon, Simon, look! Satan has asserted the right to sift you all like wheat. However, I have prayed for you that your faith won’t fail. When you have returned, strengthen your brothers and sisters. ” ~Luke 22:31-32 (CEB)

“Spiritual discernment asks us to pay attention. We need to attend to both what goes on around us and within us. Ideally, this attentiveness goes on much of the time, a sort of low level, constant spiritual sifting of the data of our experience. But there are times when discernment becomes much more focused, when a crossroad is reached or a choice called for. At times like these the cumulative wisdom of tradition tells us to pay attention on many levels: to consult scripture, to seek the advice of trusted advisers, to heed the sensus fidelium (the collective sense of the faithful), to read widely and deeply the best ancient and contemporary thinking, to pray, to attend to the prick of conscience and to the yearnings and dreamings of our hearts, to watch, to wait, to listen.”~From “Passing Angels: The Art of Spiritual Discernment” by Wendy M. Wright in Weavings November/December 1995

Heavenly Father, help me not to get discouraged as I am being sifted. Help me to pay attention so that as I come to the crossroads the path that I am to choose shines clear. Help me to draw from tradition, scripture and fellow sojourners. Bolster my faith as I watch, wait and listen. Amen.

So then, from this point on we won’t recognize people by human standards. Even though we used to know Christ by human standards, that isn’t how we know him now. So then, if anyone is in Christ, that person is part of the new creation. The old things have gone away, and look, new things have arrived!

All of these new things are from God, who reconciled us to himself through Christ and who gave us the ministry of reconciliation. In other words, God was reconciling the world to himself through Christ, by not counting people’s sins against them. He has trusted us with this message of reconciliation. ~2 Cor. 5:16-19 (CEB)

What is of God’s new reality and what is of the old, dying reality? As we seek conscious and living communion with God, how do we distinguish between God’s activity and the many less than benign forces in the world? “He brought me out into a broad place; he delivered me, because he delighted in me” (2 Sam. 22:20). These words, voiced by David celebrating God’s help in victory over enemies, offer dramatic images or understanding the mysterious work of discerning the spirits…

“True discernment calls us beyond the well-tended gardens of conventional religious wisdom to the margin between the known and the unknown, the domesticated and the wild. We incur risk any time we place ourselves in the presence of that which exists beyond our control. ‘Without the confidence of faith,’ comments St. Isaac of Nineveh, ‘ no one will rashly let his [or her] soul go into the midst of terrible and difficult things.’ How crucial, then, that our efforts to sift and sort the forces shaping our spiritual life be undertaken with some bedrock assurances. King David provides one which cannot be surpassed. We are guided through narrow paths and led to spacious vistas because God delights in us. Deep in the layers of history, beneath the great upheavals of infidelity that reshape the landscape of our life with God, there abides a divine pleasure in the human creature. In the fullness of time this delight overflowed the bounds of worldly prudence and swept God into our very midst, one with us in suffering and hope. It is always in the gladsome company of this God that our discernment occurs.” ~From “Editor’s Introduction” by John S. Mogabgab in Weavings November/December 1995

Help me to live Lord, in those margins between the known and the unknown. Help me live in that place that exists beyond my control. Strengthen in me the confidence to live for You. Guide me through the narrow paths ahead and lead me in to Your spacious vistas. Amen.

My brothers and sisters, think of the various tests you encounter as occasions for joy. After all, you know that the testing of your faith produces endurance. Let this endurance complete its work so that you may be fully mature, complete, and lacking in nothing. But anyone who needs wisdom should ask God, whose very nature is to give to everyone without a second thought, without keeping score. Wisdom will certainly be given to those who ask. Whoever asks shouldn’t hesitate. They should ask in faith, without doubting. Whoever doubts is like the surf of the sea, tossed and turned by the wind. People like that should never imagine that they will receive anything from the Lord. They are double-minded, unstable in all their ways. ~James 1:2-8 (CEB)

“Finding God’s voice in the midst of this noisy world is not easy. So many voices clamor for our attention, and so much noise tends to shield us from the voice of the One, who as Evelyn Underhill said, ‘has everything to tell us and nothing to learn from us.’ However, millions of people have learned how to ‘read the signs,’ that is, to observe how God has acted and is acting now, to listen attentively, and to receive knowledge and direction from a source greater than they are.

The foundation for reading the signs is the desire to know God’s will and the confidence that God’s desires that we do know, understand, and obey God’s will. For there are persons who habitually ask, ‘Lord, what is such persons, discernment is a way of life and to listen for God’s voice; they simply listen, trust, and obey. These persons see all experiences, ordinary and extraordinary, as conveying God’s presence and message. When such persons read the Bible or the daily paper, they are aware of another Presence speaking and guiding. These individuals experience the ordinary events of life as filed with meaning and direction from God. For the, all of life is a conversation, a dialogue with the One who made them. For the, discernment is a way of life.” ~Rueben P. Job, From A Guide for All Who Seek God.

Heavenly Father, help me to passionately seek You among the noises of this world. May the noises around me not shield Your voice so that I may know Your will for my life. Help me to seek You in the ordinary experiences of life. May I recognize Your Presence in day to day living. May I be aware of Your love for me through the people You have placed in my life. Amen.