REFLECTION ON THE TEN STEPS TO FAITH
STEP-1 From False to True Self (Transitional Self)
It seems easier to me to delight myself with a sheer thought of consolation as to keep me sane in the midst of a painful struggle of something may or may not be true…
To ascertain one thing of its kind probably, is also a question of being real or unreal, yet, I am tossed by it, oftentimes…
Then, I can think back of myself as though suffering from a kind of “schizophrenic” type of psychological milieu… I may have suffered from it, yet my conscience could still clearly tell… “I can go insane, if only to seek God’s consolation”. I think at this point, I’m certainly at the level of optimum sanity, as I recognize God, as my true consolation.
I was confronted very lately, with a deep sense of realization about my vocation… “Religious life may not be for me.” I had suffered so much, yet, I also have experienced consolation along with it.
As I introspect in myself, the pattern which I can trace back in life was in fact, a cycle of these two opposing realities, which left me consoled at one time and desolate at other times. This may be enough to allow me to choose for myself, which way I should go…
But, rather I am confronted anew with the same thought of check: “If you really wanted to follow me, deny yourself, carry your cross and follow me.” Should I complain still? By the way, what is so difficult with my life anyway? There’s nothing else but the conflict of these two opposing realities with in me. I don’t want it, yet I do. I want to do it, but I can’t.” I thought I was following the dictum: “Love until it hurts, which I re-phrased to: “Love until my last breath.” This has always been my prayer, yet, I just find also the situation repugnant to bear with. Then, I started to complain.
Of these two realities, I am certain of one, and find the other one as vaguely deceiving. Yet I tend to dwell on both. I wanted to be always at my comfort zone, then I can be who I am not. But, how should I know that this is it?
When I show my affection to my brother, I was in a way expecting it in return even more, that, innocence could turn out to be indifference. Then I started to feel robbed of my generosity, and I feel disappointed. I then thought of getting back and forget everything about it. I resolved to give up relationship as to save myself from pain and disappointment, yet I am not really ready enough to give up on this. Come on! I don’t really know where to put myself, and I continue to suffer the pain of being unnoticed and not being appreciated.
I realized that I have to find myself. The window is so clear. I have to decide for one thing and shun away from the other, no matter how wonderful and beautiful it maybe. To give up a person or relationship seems to be more serious than to give oneself to a self-integration. It is painful to lose a friend/brother, but it is more edifying to realize one’s self into mature integration. If I should ask myself, I should know what to do. I always tell myself, if this is really what God asked of me, surely I will do it. I know that there is one thing that is needed. Am I ready for it? The life I should live is the life I put at stake. To know the string that is pulling back, is the way to reach out the other side of the river, though it maybe deceiving to a relapse. The bank maybe wide enough to cross it…
Then, it is always important to know where and how we are now, that we may know what to do and not to do, or when to, and not to go.
Let me go back anyway… Yes I suffered the pain of indifference, yet I have to outgrow from this relapse. If I think that I should love, I should also know the consequence of loving. If I feel hurt for whatever reason, this should not stop me from loving still. I should know when I go wrong and redirect my path to that true self, dictated by my conscience. But, more important still, is to see within, the “false self” which, keeps on flirting and haunting me to desolation, and from it, reach my “true self.”
STEP II- Seeing Through The System ( Freedom From The Outside World)
When I seek freedom for myself, I usually seek it within. After a while, something I sense, which comes out to be strong enough to convince me that it is it. But, at a sheer split, I lose sight of it as though the problem was not real. Yet, I am displaced in my comportment. Far from considering that other than myself, there could still be another thing that could come in and intertwine with a disguised element of imprisonment beyond my volition.
Many times I presumed that I know myself very much. That I understand my body language, except for one, that I have no control of the other things apart from my self-consciousness. Like I want to do one thing because I see it a need. But, the question is, why it became a need, I have no much to say or explain, but “it is the trend!” I just want to be in, no matter what. Yet, I question myself and I struggle inside.
It is the system of the outside world that is holding me up. Even if I know that it should be this way and not the other way around, but I still find it easy to tell myself that this is what others, or the world would have it, as acceptable. Then, I go for it!
I am drawn back to the previous matter I spoke about. “Am I really called to this kind of life?” I felt it very clearly and not far from being real. Who knows anyway? Only God! When I decided to leave my nursing career to enter the religious life, it was so affirming that I was opting for a more serious decision for my life. It has been longed-for, for quite a longer span of time that I keep procrastinating in my decision. I thought I was doing it alone, or for myself and others. Hidden still, I was like putting myself to be respected and liked as such, to be sure that I become what I supposed I have started, that is, leaving behind everything for God’s sake. My mind was already closed. This is it! Priesthood! As though I was so sure. I also heard about religious brother, which I thought may also be for me. But, the “religious-system” that I have, has dropped me close in, that priesthood should be the one. People would always ask me about the near-end pledge of getting ordained into the ministry. That’s how they see it. Nothing else but priesthood! How about if one day I realized that my vocation is to become a friar and never become a priest? I seem to keep it along. Yet, behind my medullary-consciousness, I thought of, “what would my friends and families speak of it?” It would be like a curse upon me. I would be in a very great trouble. Oh it’s really haunting me to foresee such a thing. I am afraid to be rejected and abandoned by my families and friends.
Rather, it delights me to look over the horizon of that wishful dream to reach the paradise of freedom, where I can be free to do what I see for myself desirable. Then, I would want the best for myself, which also pleases others.
But, how can I please others when more than them, I want to please my God? Or, I may have wanted to please myself, but in so doing, am I pleasing God? I understand that, more than anything else, I would have opted to please God in everyway. Yet, life would not always be favorable for myself, and find it meaningless to go on… I feel robbed of myself. Yet, I still seek for this nugget of freedom.
Many people would not mind asking what religious life is all about. Nobody asks how is your community or religious life? Rather, you would find them: “How many years more?” “Will you soon be ordained?” They seem to know not, more than for me to become a priest. Then, it remains the order of expectation by almost everyone. Sometimes, it’s already tiring to explain all these. But, it has become a system which keeps me like in a box, tossed against and torn between the ideas of getting up to pursue, though may not be anymore a meaningful choice, or frightened by the ghost haunting everywhere just to please others and find myself accepted and respected for such.
If this life would not be for me, then I should find peace in it and live the freedom of being as such. Rather than pretend to be one, outside the reality of living life to the fullest. Then, life would continue to be less meaningful, and not worth living for, because the system generating from the outside world is somehow contrary to my inner vigor and serenity.
STEP III- Escaping From The Wrong Question ( The Futile Question)
I often asked God, “Lord what do you want me to do?” I seem to ask God with all sincerity to know his holy will. I have been through this, and still continue to ask the same question. It was as though, it was not enough to make a decision once and live up to it. I have been a religious for some couple of years now, yet, I remain still in a cloud of uncertainty, and I continue to ask, “Is this really the life for me?” I continue to live this kind of life, and I also continue to express my doubt. I always wanted to know that this is it, but I asked for a sign.
Once my spiritual director corrected me, for asking some signs from God. “Go back to the time you first felt God called you, and ask yourself, how did you realize in your life, that he is indeed calling you?” he said. I affirmed at once to what he said, yet very soon, I got back to the same trap.
Then, I remembered that asking God with such a question remains the same as I did when I started my journey of searching for His holy will. Once I asked, I suppose, God must have already showed me and answered me as I live my religious profession. But, I am not still convinced of it and can never appreciate it.
The experience of being like seduced by God, that to seek for Him was so great, when everything seemed up and about, to give meaning, pointing to the same direction; that God has really called me. It was really consoling to find them up with sheer sign of God’s gentle voice of inviting me to him.
On another circumstance, our postulant master once asked us such a tricky question: “Why are you here?” Then the answer commonly came: “Because we want to serve God through our brothers and sisters and of course to consecrate our life to Him”. “How sure are you that, this is really God’s will for you to be here?” There seemed to be no correct answer to that question… But, we still gave him some reasonable answers, though differently. Of course it didn’t matter anyway.
Now I go back to it. In fact there could be no perfect answer to this, but a sheer conviction. Yes, I was convinced that God called me, the reason why I entered the religious life. To what extent I am convinced? I cannot claim so much, but to know that I just believed it. This is what my heart is telling me, and I imagine that God is talking to me very clearly in all those eventualities he allowed me to experience in my life. Who else would tell me of his Will but only my faith?
Again, the question which I have now I think, is also a question to this “conviction”. Once, I greatly felt the desire of loving God, to whatever cost it may take me. I was like a lover waiting for my love placing everything at stake for her sake. But, where is my enthusiasm now? Where is that conviction which I held on to?...
Should I counter balance the question which I have now: “Is this really the life for me?” with that old and more sincere question: “What do you want me to do Lord?” which I know, still the cry of my inner soul? I continue to ask myself with such a threatening question, yet I continue to move on with the same conviction that God is really calling me though. I am losing the sight of the fact that I should ponder on the love that God is offering to me, rather than the pains and difficulties that are taking me up with the realities of life.
It is indeed consoling to recall and not to bend down on believing, that God can never change his will for us, but only to change our heart to find it more clear and challenging as it were. To ask the question: “Is this really the life for me?” could never bring us into a peaceful assurance that we keep on trying to seek God’s will. Rather, it becomes a stumbling block to know his will as He reveals to us in all of these situations in our life. To advance in faith is not to question or doubt what God could possibly make happen in our life for it may bring us to nowhere but to desolation. To ask God for His will in all sincerity of heart will surely move us on to a further search of Him with the assurance of finding him so long as we remain patient and humble to really seek for his most holy will for us
Step IV- Escaping from Strange God (Distorted Image of God and Self)
It remains a mere false presumption of humility to press on our self and condemn it as though the greatest sinner, unworthy of God’s mercy and forgiveness far from the fact that the sense of sinfulness is not fully grasped. We are not even sure if we have the sense of knowing or becoming aware of this sin.
We don’t freely condemn ourselves. Rather, we put on God the image of someone who watchfully sees us err, and binds us with a punishment commensurate to the grievousness of our wrongdoings. Did God ever say that, “you have sinned and you are not worthy of me? Did God judge us for our sins?
What makes us entangled with such predicament is our presupposition of our ugliness in sin and we make God a cruel judge, in as much as we turn into ourselves and imprison them in a tribunal of judgment as criminals, then we suffer the darkness of remorse by what we believe, and feel the state our soul as sinners, and look on God as someone who is not Himself, an exacting God
It was always a very strong disheartening experience I ever had for those moments I gave into an act of selfishness, which later on, only the reassuring counsel and absolution of a priest could rest me at peace. Meticulously so sensitive I was! I felt guilty for many things even at their very least, more than seeing God as a merciful Father or Jesus, a faithful friend whose love is greater than all the sins that the world could ever commit. To realize that I had not known neither the real sense of a father nor a brother, but a God who recognizes me as a son only in my good times.
When I sin, I am easily drawn into a remorse of displeasing a watchful and punishing God; then I would always feel aggrieved and un-consoled until it gets over, with a thought of desiring to love him, more than hurting him by my sinfulness, yet I persist on falling into the same trap. It has become a cycle!
To grow in faith, if we ever had it, was not so much a conscious effort of really finding God in our struggle. But, it was a kind of a hidden and unnoticed transformation, unbound, neither a victorious conquer of our wickedness, for we remain as such in spite of. Rather, it was always God’s way of revealing himself, as we come to know him in a different, deeper and truer sense, not for our own merit, but for His loving grace and mercy.
However, it is still counted in us to admit God into our life, just as he wished us to know Him. Probably, we don’t have to judge or label God according to our false image of Him, neither should we bring our false image of ourselves before Him and force Him to put judgment on us, which is far beyond our illusions.
In fact and in truth, God remains faithful, even if sometimes we turn out to be unfaithful to Him. Yet, we continue to suffer because we never recognized Him as such, a loving and merciful God
I’m opted now to recall, and reformulate the theme of this reflection as “Escaping from the distorted Image of God, as seen by a distorted person” rather than “Escaping from Strange God” I know that when I speak about “God” or “gods” it is not only referring to God himself, but to those idol gods which I put before my eyes that gives me a sight of those false gods. Yet, in the same way, it seems to me that in fact, I am creating an image of a strange God, which in reality is not.
… We feel that God changes his impression on us every time we fall into sin. We feel that God will hate us for grieving him with our sinfulness. I just thought of myself at one end and ask if God really is capable of being hurt by any form of sinfulness that men could ever have. Who would own to say that God is such and such?
In deed I thought of God as such sometime in the past. But, the same God I believed has brought me into this realm of seeing Him in a new and different image. It is not that I become more faithful now. Rather, I just learned to see myself better and understand it, that I can be more lovable and worthy to receive God’s mercy and love as He is. Then I become more conscious of a God who is truly more loving than I used to do.
Step V- The Heart’s Hunger (The Restless Heart)
One thing that is very certain in life is that we always wanted to have many things, if not everything that we could possibly own. When we have one or two things at hand, we still desire to have more. What else do we want more? Yet, we almost likely to forget everything that our heart desires for. We can identify some, because they were all that we saw appealing in time. Yet, we seem to feel lacking still and wished to have more without having in mind what is it really that we are longing for.
If only we can own a lot of things, or we say everything. But, to what extent that this “everything” could be contained? What are these that our heart is craving for?
I mentioned about the word “craving” as operational to this end; to describe that selfish desire to ask for more and more without yet having savored fully or masticated the whole thing that we have already received, how little they were maybe. Because, we can never stop from wanting for the things which are not always ordinary. We always wanted for something new at least for a change; we can excuse ourselves though.
The theme for this reflection: “The Heart’s Hunger” pictures us out something like having no bound to feel satisfied. Life has become a partner of filling our desires to our heart’s content. But, let me pose this question also to myself. When would my heart be contented?
I take as a point of departure to this end the expression of St. Augustine, “our hearts are restless until they rest in you.” Indeed, we remain restless in our deepest thought. There are a lot of things which pleased us, yet there are also a lot of things which saddened our heart in almost the same degree. We can’t really understand why. Then, we start to ask ourselves even more. Why does God allow us to experience this? It becomes a remorse in our heart. We are frightened somehow, and we resort to seek God for help, because in the same way, we still have God with us, for God remains ever faithful to his promise.
But, there is something that points us to, amidst this humbling experience of emptiness. Only then, that our heart or soul is emptied, for God to fill in. It may seem for us a kind of miserable state, but surely, the certitude of reaching God was always likely at hand. We become much closer to God in our desire to be with Him, in the guise of this situation. We may say like St. Augustine, we are also confronted in a particular way with situation that brings us turmoil of soul because we don’t or can’t have these things, which we desired in time.
It affected us really so deeply that life could never be the same as worth-living and worth-satisfying because we feel a part of it is lacking or empty. Then, we cling to this idea of becoming nothing, and what lies behind the next paces of our life are nothing but miseries. Yet, we continue to pray and hope for… Why?
This is the very fact that our heart remains restless until it rests on the one who could provide us with nothing else but Life- a gift more than any material goods, but a spiritual consolation of being able to live life to the fullest according to God’s holy will.
I can still remember my friend priest who once opined me with, “you don’t need to enter the seminary Cris. Your work as a nurse is already your vocation” You are already serving humanity. So great a dignity!... Being a martyr for all the sick. In myself, I was doing my best to an ample efficiency, and was always enthusiastically satisfying myself day after day, without having known the tiring effort. Yet, I feel that I was though over flowing with greater desire of turning myself into a healer of soul, more than I tried to be a healer of physical illness. I always see to it, that the patients are also considered a spiritual being who must be given this particular need, which only later on coming true, that deepest desire of offering myself to God, which I found fitting to serve the sick as a nurse while at the same time as a priest in the chaplaincy.
This has always been the desire of my soul, to continue to work for and with the sick. It remains a “restlessness” on my part, just as I have always wished for the opportune time to extend my tender, loving care to those who are in need. As much as I am given to this, unless I would have the chance to do it, my heart continues to hunger for this passion in my life, that is loving Jesus, in the disguised faces of the poor and the sick people.
STEP VI- The Wondering Mind (The Seeking Soul)
It came to my mind the experience of being sickly tired of listening to the many questions of my 6 year old nephew who out of his curiosity wanted to know this and that and all, as if no amount of explanation could put him rested and contented. I really got irritated, yet I can’t just also put him aside and ignore him at once. It seemed that he just wanted to know everything about the “whys” and “hows” of anything, which comes to his mind or what he observed around. It may not only be a sign of being inquisitive, neither it is a sign of high intelligence nor just asking question for the sake of asking, less than being pre-occupied with finding the reason why and what about these things. Rather, he finds it imperative to know all of these things.
It was quite difficult and draining to converse with such a curious mind, with all the many seemingly non-sense question. But, I understand children may always have the tendency to ask questions as their way of gaining knowledge though, not at all on the same degree.
To know something was never a matter of having to learn the whole of it. Rather, it would likely lead one to go back or advance to what could have happened or what becomes of it, beyond limit.
Very seldom do we find ourselves on deep contemplation or reflection without having distracted by the things, which had happened in the passed days, or putting up imaginary wishful thoughts to our own convenience, if not being inflicted with a sort of pessimism.
Oftentimes, we find ourselves intimidated or affected by something unknown being abstracted in our fleeting mind, beyond our conscious end. We feel delighted to console our soul, or saddened by some unprecedented fears. Then, we are either disturbed or consoled by something yet unknown.
I don’t remember a moment in my life that I asked about something with following similar questions only to arrive at a certitude of thought. Rather, I was just wondering about the “ifs” and “if nots” of some particular situations, or rather just being caught up in deep thought about something, less than moving forward or getting behind it.
Well, I couldn’t really imagine what was going on in my mind at that moment. But, I was always certainly faced with the thought of life under the disguise of a mystery. I understood something yet I couldn’t grasp fully what it was. But, I went on living… Then I asked God about this pale idea so silently with much hope to be enlightened better…
Leading to the way where I am now was such a maze of journey. Surely, I don’t discredit it as just a mere puzzle of life. Rather, I took it as God’s way of calling me. Nevertheless, I don’t presume much on this, and I sit corrected anyway.
It was not so bad to think that one day I realized that I was advancing, of course with my full and clear knowledge, to decide to leave my community after 9 months of discernment with my brothers and spiritual directors. If there was one thing that I was certain of, it was the experience of “peace” within my heart in coming up with such a decision. I had all the blessings of my superiors and spiritual director though.
My formation years were like a test of flight or fight. I always wanted to give up, yet I wanted still to go on and persevere. I have got a lot of questions in mind which most of them were freely unfolded to my superiors and spiritual director. I thought it was not for me. Then, I would rather be in another community to fit my personal charism. Yet, the irony is that, I still arrive at the third year of my temporary vow until I decided not to renew it at all in time.
I never had any doubt about my religious vocation. It was only then I realized that God was rather calling me to follow another form of spirituality, which has been my passion, which for all those years were just paid off. I had to go through a series of experiences to be more convinced of God’s will for me. Probably, up to that point, I was still in search of something yet to come.
It was never a bout of confusion. Rather, I was so sincerely seeking to know God’s will for me. I was as though restless in my life wanting to do more that I find myself doing. I was seeking God for rest and fulfillment, and of course for fidelity. Then I started to reflect deeper, just to affirm those experiences, which I wouldn’t be trustful to believe that I had all of them. Surely, I felt that I was not ready to own that God has shown his marvelous work in my life. To be carried away by such little experiences, which were for me, will only be true to some holy souls and never yet for me. I continue to ask God why?
Somehow, I felt delighted, but never in my mind to be certain enough for this grace. Should I console myself of God’s omnipotence, to believe that He could turn the greatest sinner into a “little saint?” I still ask God, “Where and what do you want me to do? Then, I go on.
Step VII- Calls of Conscience (The Dictate of My Heart)
Once in my life I said to God in my prayer that I love Him and I wanted to do something good as my gift for Him… Then in my wishful thought, I started to be good, more loving, caring and helpful. I just wanted to pray more just like talking to Him ordinarily. I had a lot of things to tell him even about my parents, my brothers and sisters, and friends. I wanted this and that and all I asked Him.
Then, it came to pass that I had wanted to seek God’s will for me in a more serious manner. I thought that God will clearly show me His way. I started to ask for sign to convince me of it. I read the Scriptures and other religious/spiritual readings expecting to hear his voice through them. Also, I have heard a lot of friends and relatives telling me about the religious or priestly aura they can see in me as they said. Were these enough to convince me of my vocation?
Far from the many signs, which might have convinced me at any given length, I had always wished to do one thing, that is, to love God by serving him in whatever way. Yet, for a kind of certitude, I was always opted to lead a priestly vocation in my wishful thought.
Of course, many times that I also thought of doing other things which were somehow in many ways displeasing Him. I then feel disturbed and awakened to rise up beyond my limitations. So much for that, I was experiencing a kind of scrupulous guilt feelings that I cast at myself a very worst sinful image. I suffered so much and was helped only by my spiritual director and confessor convincing me that I wasn’t that bad.
I never realized how much I knew of myself, yet for one thing that I was certain of, I always wanted to love God with so much confidence as I did. I thought myself to be good at a time, while at other times I was like at the opposite end. Then I just can’t point out which part of that transition that transcendence will likely to happen at the soul, who had gone through many trials and temptation. Everytime I ran short of grace, which befell me to do wrong, I felt I was moving away from God, as much as having the thought of Him, getting farther away from me with so much disappointment. Then I feel that God will love me only when I do good, and I was not at all lovable when I do wrong.
This is just how much I know of God’s love for me and how much I know of myself responding to his love. But, along this experience, certain things are apt to change with out my conscious effort. I have never so much willed to do one thing or to go for another and let go of the others. I just believed that I was at the grace of God who would have always wanted a new life for me. Then, what I thought was so terribly wrong was not at all so. I thought I was just losing the sense of sin and rightfully absolve myself from them.
Now, I’m still opted to commit the same sin. But, the experience of it is now different; not anymore tormenting nor threatening. Nevertheless, I became even more aware of its grievousness. Yet, I have learned much of myself and accepted it as a weakling creature, who could not actually hold on to life without God’s grace. God for me now, is a real person (in Jesus who reached out to our humanity that we may be able to arrive the divinity of God) as a true friend.
It’s not in a way that I try to take things lighter. Rather, to arrive at the real experience of a true God, who is ever merciful and just, who understands my weaknesses more than the virtues I can live in my life. To know one’s self better is not in place, only to know one’s strength. Rather, it is more of knowing one’s limitation and wickedness. Just as we dwell in our sinfulness, which makes us feel unworthy of a God. God’s greatness in mercy and love owns us legitimately more than the unworthiness we feel.
We can always hear our inner self, telling us something of its limitation and of the God we believe, who is merciful and loving. Somehow, along this experience we struggle… in our desire to love God, our desire for pleasure and our desire to be hard on our self in accepting our sinful nature. This experience is for us an uncomfortable one. Yet, this is in fact the beginning of our journey with God, in our desire to transcend our human nature and be united with Him. We feel sorry and regret when we are given into such a predicament. We either accept it, in the name of faith or shun away from it, yet, we are drawn even stronger in a different way, how he draws us closer to Him. It’s not our idea or choice after all. It’s this grace, which God instill in our soul through which He touches our inner being. Then we are helpless and become restless until we rest in His peace living in us.
Step VIII- The Experience of Spirit (The Promptings of the Spirit)
The experience of Spirit should not always be taken as an extraordinary or a spectacular happening. It may be, but it may not always be I reiterate. It may happen in a very ordinary and sheer event of living the life. Rather in its certitude, it’s always been the real and down to earth experience of a person with his God in whatever way He encounters Him. Then the person will either accept or refuse His grace of spiritual life
The experience of Spirit, that is the Spirit of God, the Holy Spirit is paid with much certainty of God’s initiative, touching the person in whatever way, in any circumstance or situation in life. It is not always a mystical experience, which are only true to some few holy souls like the saints. But how about us?
For us probably, or let me say for me, it may not always be an experience of purely consoling moment. But, most especially, I counted on the experience of the sense of joy in the midst of those shaking and inflicting situations, and that many times too, the experience of desolation was always up, to remind me of the life beyond its horizon.
Once I asked my professor in Philosophy if it’s valid to say that “I may not be happy, but I remain joyful in the same way.” To my disappointment, I was somehow disproved of that idea. I felt sad, yet I remained still convinced for the fact that it was how I experienced it in my life. Sometimes I can’t help but to feel pity on myself. I just keep on asking God and even myself: “Is this really my role in life, to suffer such ridicules and abuses, denials, judgment and condemnation?” These may be too much for me, but I remained convinced that there is really a God who allows me to experience all these. I can’t imagine how I brought myself down in order to survive from them.
I hope, I would still be making sense if I will say more of my experiences, which I dubbed as “ little spiritual experiences” that brought me something new in life. I mean to say, about my journey to the Franciscan Third Order Regular all the way from my previous community. I’ve got a lot of them revealed to my spiritual director in time, which I can’t appropriately write here. I am still afraid for others to impress me with something negatively. Certainly, these I believed are all real experiences of God’s work in my life.
To feel that God is telling me something has brought me a kind of an awareness to be more sensitive to many things. Little things become media of a strong and clear promptings of God’s Spirit. Far beyond my imagining, situations would likely connect, to tell me one and the same thing. I almost couldn’t comprehend all these, for I felt that I was not worthy at all. I can’t also suffer myself but to delight on them. Visual things as such made their impact so strongly felt on the soul with nothing else but an open and seeking heart.
Such experiences were too much for me that I had to share also the burden to my spiritual director. Up to this point, I feel as though I am still at lost. I can’t yet find the reason why? I asked my spiritual director to help me discern on these, then he said that I just go on living my life and to pray and discern more. I thought I was already losing my mind. Certainly, it did not show up as such. God has his own way of relieving me from the remorse of such reality.
How I experienced life in the most natural way, was the very experience which I have with my God in the Spirit. Yet, it’s not always the reason for recognizing Him in those situations. More often than not in the real sense, it was only when I feel inspired and delighted with something that I can greatly recognize his movement in my life. There seems to be nothing to tell, when my life is confronted with such a trivial concern, that I think of nothing else but myself and my concerns. Where is God then? I seem to be not aware as though, life is just life to live on.
There seems to be no much to deal with life… I just try to be good. I pray and serve others, then that’s it! Whether or not I experience God, was never my question. Certainly, I was always delighted to think about it. Otherwise, I don’t mind it at all.
Step IX – Christ Encounter (The Untold Story of Christ in My Life)
Our experience of God could never be an experience of the past. For past is passed…! Let bygone be bygone! There is nothing more in it, but a fleeting memory. But, God’s presence is so alive in us that we don’t have to bring back the experiences, which are merely formed in us, yet have to be lived in and continue to witness in our life.
It is now the time to live not the past, or move fleetingly in to the future. Rather, to live the present and to live in the present. Our experience of wandering and those of our trying moments we had in life are now filled in with a new promising and meaningful life- a life of living it to the full.
We might have experienced many wonderful and extraordinary things in the realm of our spiritual life. But, they were just enough to tell us that there is God. Also for all the miseries we might have experienced in our poverty or desolation were enough to remind us that God was there all the way, who prevented us from dying.
What God has in store for us now? We have been blessed in so many ways even without us, asking God. God knows what is best for us and He will surely bless us abundantly in His time. Yet, sometimes we still think and question: “Am I worthy to find favor with God?” It is not unnatural for us to limit God’s grace and love for us sinful creatures. We refuse to accept God’s gift of love, because we feel that we are not worthy for it. Certainly, it is not for our own merit that God showered us with His blessings. If there is one that God can’t do, is this… He can’t but love!
We don’t recognize, or, rather we refuse to recognize and own that God is in us. There is this abode in our soul where God resides, we may believe it or not. But, it’s not for us to prevent God from touching our life. Who are we anyway? This is the very truth that we can’t escape from… We are God’s and we have God in us. To shift from that false idea of our self and of God is the only key to this possession. Had God not been on our side what is there for us? If God should mark our guilt, who would survive?
Yet, God would not want us to go on losing our way. He keeps on calling us back to Him, not only to get sight of Him, but really to feel Him in our life and to be in love with Him. We are only to love Him, if we allow Him to touch our life and receive His love for us.
Here it is, the encounter with Jesus… A kind of a love story, which Jesus would have wished for us… for me!
When Jesus was dying on the cross as it were, He himself was expressing his great love for each one of us so personally. I then imagine myself hear Him telling me “Cris, this is how much I love you!” O my wicked soul! Jesus has done everything completely. There is nothing else shall follow. I have no strength to keep sight of Him.
If Jesus is proposing us to this relationship, He is not asking us to bit our self with painstakingly loving Him. It’s just for us to allow Him to enter into our life and to experience His love for us.
Jesus would not ask us to sacrifice our life, but to celebrate life with Him. As he performed his very first miracle in Cana, by turning the Jars of water into the best wine, He also would provide us the grace that will enable us to respond to His love… “Do what He tells you to do”…
In any love relationship, lovers would not always command and give or share the life in loving one another. To do what one tells the others to do would even be more than giving one’s love for the other. Commonly, we hear the saying, “Your wish is my command” How wonderful it is for a person to hear his love saying, “tell me what must I do, and I will do.” Then, Jesus would somehow ask us, “What do you want me to do for you?” “Lord heal me that I may do your will.”
