Tag: Obedience

The light that leads

“If you haven’t surrendered it to God, then you’ve surrendered it to someone else.”

I recently attended the GTA Area Core SHouT this past weekend and there are not enough words in the dictionary to describe the plethora of events that happened within those 5 days. So I’ll just use one: enlightened.

You know when you’re at a sleepover and everyone’s already passed out cold on the beds and floors. The morning after is hard to get through. You’re tired and exhausted. You have some sort of consciousness- awake but not really. It’s not until someone draws the blinds or curtains to expose the harsh sunlight rays that you feel the urgency to get up. It’s already half past noon and you’ve just wasted half the day away.

That’s how my recent experience with Christ was at SHouT. He turned on the lights. The light allowed me to see everything that was in that room, rather…my life. Enlightened- one’s ability to be spiritually aware. The Lord allowed me to see His plans for me that much clearer.

But see, when you turn on the lights EVERYTHING gets exposed, not just the good stuff. You don’t have a choice. But God is a god of light and peace- The truth, His truth is exposed in all its glory.

I’m facing the skeletons in my closet right now, some I thought I buried a long time ago but really just put a drape over. God’s light drew me to these areas, the crevices and corners, the edges and cracks. The small things count, because to God everything matters. As much as it hurts me to pull out long overdue band aids, I know that with His love I’ll finally be able to heal properly.

“Ate, it’s like when you make a paper boat and then you put it in the water. That’s how you’ll know if your boat is good or not. It might start to sink because of a hole, but all you have to do is just take it out and then patch up whatever holes exist.”

It had to happen this way for me. This was God’s way of telling me to patch up those holes so that my boat could float. How else can I be a better person or leader if I don’t allow God to shine His light on every single area of my life, even the dark sides- the ones I don’t want to look at. In this way, I can confidently go out and allow the God in me to shine.

Send out your light and your truth; let them guide me.- Psalm 43:3

Is that what you really want?

When you spend every waking hour with 20+ other CFC-Youth members for a three- week period the normal conference high quadruples.  You never really come off the mountain experience you’re feeding off of each other’s vibes. We all came with different service backgrounds but what we shared was this search for God in a land foreign to us. Our pathways all merged into some sort of Lord of the Rings quest thus making the journey less tiring. So when the time came that I had to leave my tightly sealed and sheltered CFC-Youth pack to transition back to my regular Philippines environment, I really felt displaced.

Right after the two week World Great Adventure Tour, I went on a five day excursion with my childhood friends to Iloilo, Guimaras and Boracay. Halfway through our trip we stopped by this Trappist monastery. It was part of the day tour and to be honest with all the changes that kept happening I really needed to find myself in something familiar. A church seemed like the best option. Now I’ve entered dozens of churches here in the Philippines and the beauty each one holds always takes my breath away. But there was something different about this one.

As soon as I entered through the gates, my tear ducts hit some sort of overdrive. Something caught my throat and my chest tightened up. Something was tugging at my heartstrings, and it wasn’t being very gentle. All throughout the year I’ve felt God playing hide and seek with me. The moments that He decides to make His presence felt always catch me off guard and I can’t help but feel as if some hypothetical suckerpunch comes flying at me. Ultimate silence filled my head while my heart was being flooded with a million and one different emotions spurred by nothing.

Then out of nowhere, I felt God asking me in the most casual tone:

“What do you really want? I’m not asking you what you think I think you want. I’m asking you to tell me what the desires in your heart are. Of course I know them. I know what will bring you happiness, but I need you to vocalize what YOU want…what you FEEL you deserve to have in your life.”

It was probably one of the most humbling moments throughout this trip. There’s a difference between giving an answer because you know it’s the textbook sample, and giving an authentic, sincere heartfelt reply. He knows what I want, of course he does. Some of the things I’ve been asking for are more than a decade old. But there I was being asked to take centre stage. Would I ask for the same thing knowing that this time He was initiating instead? Was I really sure about what I wanted? I just pictured God smiling down at me, encouraging me to ask for my desires with full confidence.

Before walking back to join my friends for the rest of the tour, I walked over to where the candles for petition were. I took five candles and as I lit one for every prayer I felt myself getting lighter. It was an act of unpacking my emotional luggage. I realized that gaining peace through God would happen as a culmination of reaching different checkpoints. This was one of them. I looked at my five candles, let out an exasperated sigh and confidently muttered Psalm 37:4……

“Delight yourself in the Lord and He will give you the desires of your heart.”

I will have nothing, except You

Sometimes I do good things so that the Lord will bless me. I get excited for the graces I will receive. I get excited for the souls in purgatory I could possibly save. And yes, more selfishly, I get excited that maybe God will grant me all my wishes if I make Him happy. 

But if I am constantly doing things for my own benefit, our faith becomes a job. My focus is on myself instead of where it should be: on our God. It is a constant work in process. A constant goal to be better.

And I pray that one day, if God comes to me and asks, “what reward would you have for your labor?” I can answer the same as St. Thomas Aquinas – “I will have nothing, except You”.

 

March 4, 2013

Witnessing naturally follows obedience, just as charity naturally follows faith. The obedience of faith leads to the witnessing of charity. To be obedient in faith is to put ourself in the position to be found, to be entered into, to be pursued, to be embraced, to be encountered and loved by Jesus Christ. To be obedient to God is to allow His Holy Spirit to dwell, transform, and animate us. The Blessed Virgin Mary is the perfect example of this. Through her obedience, Jesus Christ was conceived in her by the power of the Holy Spirit. Jesus literally came to her. Mary truly loves us because of how present the Lord is in her.

—

In a very real and mystical way, when we are obedient to God, Jesus comes to us and the Holy Spirit dwells, transforms, and animates us. We become more like Him. We can only pray that we may love our neighbour with Christ in us, just as Mary does.

—

True obedience is the dying to one’s self (Phil. 2:8). This is why it’s the hardest thing for me to do. The more I reflect on obedience, the more I realize how disobedient I actually am because of my refusal to die to self. I am very selfish and of little faith and in many areas of my life I am blind and ignorant.

Maybe I am blind and ignorant because a part of me wants to stay this way. Maybe a part of me is scared of the light because it would reveal the true darkness in my life. This journey towards holiness is very illuminating. I mean, this journey has definitely illuminated by mind and my knowledge has increased about the faith, but more so, it has made clearer to me my sinfulness.

—

Lord, I am a sinner. My sins are as numerous as the stars. Daily, I sin because of my thoughts and words, in what I’ve done, and what I’ve failed to do. Lord, have mercy!

As I continue my lenten journey, oh Lord, please be gracious and merciful to me. Please give me the grace to have true sorrow for my sins and the resolve to sin no more. Increase my faith in You oh God, help me to be obedient so that You can simply do Your will through me. Help me to let go and to lose my life for Your sake. Come to me, Jesus, make haste to help me. Amen.

Our Lady of Perpetual Help, pray for us.