Trusting that
we've all had our
fiber full,
fruit fresh,
yogurt topped
breakfasts
this morning,
let's get right to it.
We have some
heavy lifting.
It's this.
Thursday Mornings
What is the number one,
no doubt about it,
for sure,
hands down,
darndest
HARDEST
thing
in our spiritual lives?
Is it
an untamed passion,
someone we can't stand,
we're soul stalled,
concept confusion,
jealousy,
sinful past,
desert dry soul,
laziness,
selfishness,
dispiriting church,
striving fatigue,
conflicting values,
a world coming undone,
fear,
success mania,
other............?
For all those and many more
there is one even harder.
THE HARDEST
is
Letting God
love and lead
us
God's Way
Surprised?
Well, ever so sneaky subtle,
deep in us is a commanding
sense of soulful
self-direction and
self-promotion.
It amounts to
a discounting of divine
care and guidance.
It's a reluctance to totally
give over all to even God,
to unreservedly
surrender
to total goodness,
to divine love.
It lurks
just below the surface
for many of us,
a subtle stoppage
to a full free flow of
God and us
ONENESS
We blockade
divine intimacy
and wonder why
we're frustrated
and lonely.
Control
is the
contraceptive
of
soul.
So, here's
a homey,
hockey analogy
But first,
A sidebar:
If you ever
run short
of them,
do ring me up.
I have
baskets full!!
OK, now back to
spiritual serious.
Well, not really.
Here comes that
homey, hocky analogy.
Imagine a six-year-old
demanding
to drive the car,
interstate intense,
New York to
San Francisco.
Pretty crazy for sure
and yet, that's roughly
how we too often,
perhaps regularly,
try to navigate
spiritually.
In our immaturity,
God's welcome to sit
in the passenger seat and
offer occasional assistance
when requested,
to grab the wheel
when we get in a fix,
but the wheel is OURS!!.
I confess it has been
sadly so with my soul
way too much and long.
In my younger days
I strove to be spiritually
letter perfect.
Talk about trying to be
in the driver's seat!!
I crashed big bad time -
a psychic meltdown.
Over the years
I have done lots of
stupid, self-centered
spiritual role playing
thinking it was
a way to be holy,
to get ahead spiritually
by serving
in a certain fashion.
Problem was it was
MY Way
not
God's Way
I wrote the script and
was the main actor -
the perfect pastor
(eighty hours a day,
ten days a week),
a spiritual guru,
the relevant, cool cleric,
the sober ascetic,
the misty mystic,
the reformer,
the ideal husband
and dad even if
my wife and kids
didn't notice it.
Another sidebar:
When joking with my wife,
I slip into one of those
" You go ahead and have
that last piece of cake"" wines,
my wife teases right back that
she doesn't mind me
being a saint,
but forget about
the martyr bit !!
To push the driving analogy
a touch more - I promise!! -
consider
The Greyhound Bus
commercial:
LEAVE THE DRIVING TO US
(Dated yes, but come on.
I'll be eighty-six! in a week)
That's how it is with God.
Whatever the stretch of road,
hard, easy, dangerous
or breath taking,
God offers to be
in the driver's seat
and we move over:
"...Thy will be done...
Matthew 6:10
"Trust in the Lord
with all your heart
and lean not on your
own understanding;
in all your ways
acknowledge him and
he will make
your path straight."
Proverbs 3:5
In other words:
"Leave the driving to me.
I'll get us where we're going,
safe and sound."
God
It's all a matter of
TRUST
of having
wide open,
"You betcha",
clean, clear,
complete,
Trust
in God,
and
fully
Following
His way and will.
Adam and Eve didn't.
They grabbed the wheel,
played God, and look
what happened
to them - and us - and our world.
All this does not mean
we go spiritually comatose,
inert, passive, stalled out.
It does mean we freely go
where God takes us and
as God goes about it.
We live directed by
The Gospel,
guided
and
strengthened
by the Spirit.
We live it
as life shows up
on the road
of life -
easy, painful,
clear, conflicted.
We let God lead.
We live a following.
- We "Bloom where
we are planted",
not seeking out some
imagined garden enclosed
for spiritual excelling.
- We don't play supposedly
superior roles that
are not genuine to us,
spiritual or otherwise.
- We don't stretch to score
brownie points with God
or before others.
- We don't jump on the latest
spiritual fads to excel like
going for:
* One-Armed Yoga Handstands
For Day Long Bliss
* Hair Shirts For Suburbanites
* Meditations Mellow for
Mile High Ecstasy
Right at Your Kitchen Table
* Novenas That Never Fail
(votive lights included)
Yah, I jest but it's anything
but fun or funny.
- Reading all the new "in"
spiritual books to keep up with
the latest and best in the
Spirituality Olympics.
- rushing off to every new practice,
retreat, protest, seminar, workshop
to keep pace with the spiritually elite.
- catching the top ten spirituality podcasts
to rank high among
the Spirituality Chi-Chi Set.
- Straining, pushing to graduate
from simple prayer to
contemplation to the mystical.
A lot of false self
in the driver's seat there.
A lot of trying to climb the
latter of spiritual superiority.
So doing,
we wedge
our false selves
in between
God and our true selves.
On the positive, what really counts side,
- We treat those around us as God -
spouses, kids, in-laws, neighbors,
co-workers, the delights and
the dim at work, in church,
all those in our many relational zones.
- We welcome, embrace and share
with the hurt and needy.
"Whatever you do to others
you do unto me."
Matthew 25:40
They presence God
and
God's call to us.
All of Matthew 25:37-46
is God's GPS, God's action plan,
for our life trip's success or
our refusal of it:
"I was
hungry
thirsty
stranger
underclothed
sick
prisoner
Each applies widely, e.g.
"I was thirsty" for:
acceptance
respect
truth
understanding
inclusion
forgiveness
another chance
a break
guidance
relationship
being listened to
"And you: ????????????"
- We follow God's direction by practical,
thorough going, truly living
The Beatitudes
and
The Sermon on the Mount.
(Matthew 5-7)
A few examples
- 5:7 Merciful
We take it easy on our kids when
they throw up three times
during the night,
bedding and pajamas disasters,
and all this the night before
our 8:00 AM annual performance
review at work.
- 5:21-26 Anger/Enemy
In the safety of
our inner, burning anger
we don't "murder" the co-worker
that routinely takes swipes at us.
- 6:1-4 Giving
We are sensitive and discreet
in sharing with the needy.
- 7:1-5 Judging
As solid sure right
as we think we are,
we just don't waste energy
on judging others.
- 6:5-14 Prayer
We go alone with Our Father,
close the door on busy/noisy.
It's Dad/Lad/Lass Alone Time
and sacred so it is.
- We're fine with whatever
spiritual state, stage,
grace, consolation God gives -
quiet to ecstasy.
- We check out Pentecost.
The disciples were
in a spinout,
didn't know
where to go,
how to get there.
The Spirit
steered them straight
and strong.
That's our
Go To
as and for well.
It may happen
in prayer,
in a church setting,
in counsel with a spiritual guide,
in the forest,
in the shower!!!
The wonderful medieval
theologian and mystic,
Meister Eckhart ,
said it simple and complete:
"All God asks of us is
that we get out of the way
and let God be God in us."
Here this week I have confessed
my various shades and shapes
of spiritual arrogance.
I end this confession
close to my end
with a witness.
In these my last days
it's so darn good,
real and right,
to just ride easy with God
in the driver's seat.
There are some
bumpy spans for sure.
There sure are some
smooth stretches
and views, too.
Either way
we are together
now unto forever.
That's the wondrous joy
of divine intimacy.
It isn't at all that hard.
Quite the wondrous opposite.
All it takes is to move over
and leave the driving to God.
******
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THANKS
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with others
Til next week
Love to all
God Bless
John Frank
frankly speaking
spirituality for the street
johnfrankshares.blogspot.com
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