The Vision in a Dream
In a dream once I was given what appeared to me to be a private revelation upon waking, for I heard a voice upon waking whisper in my ear as clear as any voice is heard, and I have reason to assume it to be the voice of God, for it followed the dream closely, within seconds of waking, and told me only “This is something you should take seriously.” In that instant I took the vision seriously out of fear, and the Holy Spirit lead me on the path towards redemption and the renewal of my faith in Christ, and the slow turning away from my old ways that was about to take place, and would continue to take place unto this very day. It is not given to me to know what it meant, and I will refrain from all interpretation until it may, if it is God's desire, to reveal its meaning to me. All I need know for now is that God saved me with it.
God need not reveal Himself to me as He reveals the sky or the sun, for until His time when He should return to the Earth corporeal as He is and shall be again, He can’t be seen with eyes, or heard by ears, or felt with hands. His revelation can only be seen with the eye of the heart, and heard with the ear of the soul, and felt in the presence of His love, which is the pure love, the higher love, in correspondence with his higher law, which is love. God is not corporeal, for He is omnipotent, omnipresent, and omni-benevolent, and has qualities infinitesimally divorced from that which is corporeal. He has already revealed himself through his son Jesus, the Christ, the only begotten of the Father, and when He returns, He shall reveal himself as corporeal again, for Christ is eternally corporeal, for He alone has risen. This is the only sign we need.
In the dream I was outside in the driveway of my grandfather’s house, and the sky was blue, and the sun was shining bright, when with a roar the sky darkened and like a thief in the night, down came fire from the sky of no natural source until the whole sky itself was engulfed in roaring flame. Where the fire splashed on the ground like water, all the earth was instantly set ablaze in giant pillars of fire that moved about the land like packs of wolves, devouring everything, every rock, every tree, every blade of grass, and even the air itself. All was cloaked in the beast and fingers of unearthly blaze.
I ran from the blaze, with nowhere to run, for behind me were pillars of fire scorching the land and air and sky, and before me were more pillars of fire doing the same, and to the side and to the side. Even in all this destruction, I felt no heat from the flame, but I ran in terror of immanent death, my heart leaping and my feet trembling as they trudged the blaze underfoot.
Then a house stood before me, a cube house of two floors under a roof, with one large window on the second floor, looking clearly into the interior. A tree stood in back of it, engulfed in flame on the horizon, which had now been reduced to ash but continued to burn as fire continued to rain down from the very stars. The cube house was entirely ablaze, and every surface of it was being crawled by fire as if by water, all sides, top and bottom, inside and out, all walls, all ceilings were completely engulfed in orange, red, and black fire.
And inside the house, through the second story window, I saw a mother and her children completely engulfed in fire in an instant, until the mother appeared at the window as engulfed as the house around her, to the point where her eye sockets had burned away and her skin was sunken in, and she raised her hands to her face and screamed, as did her children behind her in the room. Her screams rang out straight into my heart, and I stood there still untouched, and yet still terrified beyond description. There was nowhere to run, no way to save them, and no way to save myself, for all creation was being engulfed before my very eyes.
Unable to handle the terror, I was stirred violently awake, and I instantly heard a voice whisper in my ear while I was still wide-eyed and trembling in terror, and it told me only “This is something you should take seriously.” And from that moment on, I began to call on the Lord, and repent, and the Holy Spirit began instructing me on what I should do, even though I still wouldn’t listen.
But the voice of God is definite, sharp like a double-edged sword ready to cut you to the core of your being, and though I came under temptation and followed after sin, for I am a sinner until this day, I began to recognize that sin is destructive to life, and to call upon the Lord, read His Word, have faith in His promise, and accept the sacrifice of Christ for my sins. Through the Holy Spirit, He has even directed my will to be pure, and He wills now that my deeds follow suit. He asks that I receive His blessed sacraments, even as I am besought with temptation and the sins of the flesh. He has shown me His Love when He taught me to fear Him, and in my fear, has granted me his Love.
Lord Almighty, Maker of My soul, Justifier of my faith, Sanctifier of my soul, Who calls me from the depths of wretchedness to be a saint as He does with all souls whether they listen or not, I ask only that my will be subject to Yours, and that I answer Your call with a contrite heart, that through Your grace, and by Your power, Your glory be made as clear in the world as your voice was to my ears. I pray this in the name of the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit, in perfect union. All glory and honor is Yours, almighty and loving Father, forever and ever. Amen.
The World Would Ruin Me
The World Would Ruin Me
I always do the opposite of what I'm told. The world seeks to ruin me, but God builds me up. The Almighty, the creator of heaven and the earth, who created my soul, only seeks to sanctify what the sinful world would rather see dead, and to return to Him what was His with interest. All of creation is nothing compared to what He has prepared for me. And yet, the world would still have it "my way," but my way is nothing before God's way, for my way leads me to the pit, to despair, to self-pity, to hopelessness, to ruin, to prison, and to death, and God's way only leads me to blessing, even if the road is hard. The world teaches me to be ungrateful, so I do well always and everywhere to give thanks for those blessings instead.
The world would have me discount those blessings that come in the form of pain and require the strength and grace God willingly gives, so I offer my suffering before God in sacrifice, in deference, into His eternal receptiveness and mercies, both to give witness of His glory and expose the face of the weak-willed world. The world would have me love sin, be enslaved to sin, be enslaved to the whims of my body, until my body suffocates my soul back to dust in eternal death in the ground. For this reason, God is my salvation, making my short stay on the mortal coil the beginnings of eternal life.
For this reason, God has prepared the way for me, through his Word, Who became flesh for my sake. As the world wants me for its sake, my head on a plate to save its face against its own, God has given his only Begotten for my sake, pulled me from the pit of wrath and emptiness to save me for His own. As the world would want me pushing in line to serve my selfish desires unto death in the ground, God has me waiting patiently to serve his purpose, which is for the good of me and the world, unto eternal life in His loving embrace. The world seeks only to kill me, to let me drown in my own despair without hope. God not pulls me from the pit, but sets me up on a rock and makes my footsteps firm.
All this being said, which way shall I then go? God's way.
Giving In to God
Giving In to God
God need not reveal Himself to me as He reveals the sky or the sun, for until His time when He should return to the Earth corporeal as He is and shall be again, He can’t be seen with eyes, or heard by ears, or felt with hands. His revelation can only be seen with the eye of the heart, and heard with the ear of the soul, and felt in the presence of His love, which is the pure love, the higher love, in correspondence with his higher law, which is love. God is not corporeal, for He is omnipotent, omnipresent, and omni-benevolent, and has qualities infinitesimally divorced from that which is corporeal. He has already revealed himself through his son Jesus, the Christ, the only begotten of the Father, and when He returns, He shall reveal himself as corporeal again, for Christ is eternally corporeal, for He alone has risen. This is the only sign we need.
God need not prove to me that He is love, and for what purpose He has ordained all things, even that which seems to contradict, or that which appears barbaric to my earthly eyes and ears. God is eternal, both reacting to and provoking human affairs to suit His purpose, which is for the benefit of the world, no matter how grim, no matter how barbaric it may seem to our earthly, temporal understanding. All that is ordained by God is for the benefit of those who are called to Him, and to whom He calls to Himself (being one and the same), as He has revealed in His Word, his Son, Jesus Christ, Who was there from the beginning in perfect union with the Father, as well in His divinely inspired scripture.
God need not sort out for me why He calls certain people and causes others to harden their hearts against Him for the benefit of those whom he calls. He need only reveal His works to me, and I need only believe Him when He tells me that his works are pure, and motivated for the benefit of His people. For He brought our very souls into existence, and it was by His hand that our souls were attached to fleshly bodies, and it is by his justification that we are saved from the natural destination of our souls without him, and by the free gift of His grace that we are sanctified to be in more perfect union with Him, and in unity with Christ, our Brother, and Savior, the holy Sacrifice for our earthly sins.
God need not explain why He has allowed sin to enter into his perfect creation, for God does not cause us to sin, nor does He look upon that which is sinful. He only causes us to repent of sin, and gives us the gift of salvation through the sacrifice of His Son, and allows us the gift of a free will to make the choice as to whether we accept that sacrifice and receive our salvation, or deny His gift of salvation and follow our soul to its natural destination in eternal damnation. For God’s judgment is not condemnation, for unrepentant sinners condemn themselves, but it is judgment nonetheless, depending on how he has perceived the path of our souls since the beginning of creation.
All that is ordained by God is for the benefit of those who are called to Him, and whom He calls to Himself (being one and the same), but while this is true, not all that happens is condoned by God in His law. So while God has perceived and anticipated since the beginning of creation the destination of all souls (through predestination), and would like that we should all be saved, He only condones and sanctifies all that yields good fruit with the power of the Holy Spirit, and those he has predetermined will be saved through the sacrifice of his Son, Jesus Christ. Who is saved and who isn’t is known only to Him.
All that is ordained by God is for the benefit of those who are called to Him, and whom He calls to Himself (being one and the same), but while this is true, not all that happens is condoned by God in His law. So while God has perceived and anticipated since the beginning of creation the destination of all souls (through predestination), and would like that we should all be saved, He only condones and sanctifies all that yields good fruit with the power of the Holy Spirit, and those he has predetermined will be saved through the sacrifice of his Son, Jesus Christ. Who is saved and who isn’t is known only to Him.
God need not explain to me why he allows any of his beloved children to enter into eternal damnation, for his love is a more pure, eternal form of love than our earthly bodies and minds can fathom. Those who ignore His gift of salvation, He simply lets from His sight, as Cain to wander the Earth, to be swallowed up in their imperfect idea of love and grace, or lack thereof. He only seeks to intervene in the life of the unrepentant sinner if it is in the furtherance of His purpose, whatever that is. This is to say that God has the power to save all souls, and has revealed Himself to all people equally throughout time in various and often unknown ways for His own purpose, but for the furtherance of His own purpose only (and not that of any man’s), He has chosen to save only those whom He calls, and whom are called, being one and the same. God need not explain these things, He need only say them, and it shall be done.
Your will be done, Lord, in all things, whether I can understand Your Will or not, or whether Your ways appear to me barbaric, or unholy, or motivate Satan (the author of confusion) to stir confusion and doubt in me. For I recognize that You are eternal, and I am mortal, and my reasoning is temporal and imperfect and flawed, and Your reasoning is Reasoning itself, just as Your love is Love itself. I recognize that You don’t know, you are Knowing, and You don’t love, you are Love, and that You don’t reason, You are Reason, and that in all things, Lord, You are Absolute. In this I ask You, Lord Almighty, Creator and Maker of heaven and earth, Creator, Maker, Redeemer, Justifier, and Sanctifier of my soul, Your creation, to give to me the wisdom to do Your Will, to obey Your Word, and come to know you as best as You made me capable of knowing, and to love You as best as You made me capable of loving, and to banish all fear and sin in me, placed in me by the evil one, that keeps me from doing, obeying, and loving You and from following Your Will. In the name of the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit, in perfect unity, I ask this that Your Will be done. Amen.
Deliverance By God
God has delivered me out of bondage to sin, and has loosed me into the new life he will show me, and because of my weakness I still have sinned, but because of His grace, I have not reveled in my sin as I once did. Instead, as a sinner, I am called from my sin to call upon God for His forgiveness, which the scripture says He freely gives! In asking for forgiveness I do not excuse my sin, because His grace is in me, and the guilt of my transgression is still upon me. All sin does is call my attention to my weakness, call my attention to my condemnation, so I thirst all the more for the grace of God to produce in me righteousness. Sin does not cause me to need the Lord, and the Lord does not cause me to sin. The Lord calls me to be sanctified by His grace, whether sin is present or not, so the Lord calls me to need the Lord only, but sin in and of itself only brings me condemnation and a death sentence.
I do well when I wait upon the Lord Almighty to redeem me to such a point where sin has no hold over my actions, and all that I do, think, believe and understand flows forth from him Him, so that His grace pours out on me in full communion with His Body in Christ. The Lord is my shepherd, the Word is His staff by which he directs His flock, and the Church is His fence by which He keeps His flock unto His own. If I should stray in my weakness, the Lord knows me as His own, and He lovingly will break me and bring me back into His fold. If I should stray in my weakness, Christ is there to welcome my return, to give me strength as the Gate to the Father's pasture.
So it is that my sin causes me to go astray from the pasture, and there, fall to death, but it is God that causes me to rise from that death, and rise to life eternal, when I am sincere in my repentance and return. So it is that each time I sin, knowingly or otherwise, I stand guilty before the Lord because I am His, and because I am His my desire to turn from sin is sincere, so by His merit (through Christ), He gives freely His forgiveness in the furtherance of my salvation which is the purpose of His glorification. And He is ever-worthy of more glorification! At all times and everywhere blessed be the name of the Lord!
When I sin the sin of lust, anger, lies, conceit, or any sin I am guilty of, it is because of my weakness. Such does not bring glory to God. If the Spirit of God was not in me, I would feel no remorse, so sin on its own accord has no place in salvation. In fact, in such a case I might even be tempted to justify the sin as somehow bringing glory to Him, and I would have no desire to call upon the Lord for forgiveness, nor would I feel the need for penance or prayer, or sacrifice, so that in my sincerity for righteousness no more unrighteousness proceeds from my hands, mind, eyes, or any of my members.
But because the Spirit of God has chosen me, I am free to serve the Lord and to turn away from sin by the power of God Almighty which He alone grants, either by his own or through His servants. Because God has chosen me, I am free to serve God. I am not at liberty to sin. The sacrifice of Jesus Christ, the only Begotten Son of God, has paid the price for my sin, and so now I am brought by the master and I have no liberty or license to disobey the master, but because the master is all-loving, all-merciful, and has foreseen my weakness, He has seen to it that through the resurrection of His only Begotten Son, His forgiveness knows no bounds if I should ever submit to weakness and fall under sin's grasp for a time. This is because He is more than a master; He is "Abba" Father, and more loving than any earthly one.
In such time I should call upon the Lord to grant me the strength to resist the temptation to sin that plagues me night and day, for I confess before you all and before God that my greatest vice, that which is resigning me to hell and my flesh to death, is LUST, and a despicable form of lust. This lust is not in me (my flesh) so that God may be glorified by it!! It is in my flesh so that I may be delivered unto Hades. God is only glorified when I am righteously adhering to His word, living by faith, and justified by faith alone which is made alive by works, so that the fruits of my faithfulness (where they exist) may fulfill God's holy purpose and that by works of faith my sanctification is carried out before death, so that the second death does not become me and that life abounds eternal instead in my glorified and resurrected body before I can enter with it into the Father's house. Glory and praise be to God from where all grace, love, sanctification, and STRENGTH comes!
The Lord has permitted extra-ordinary evils to fall upon my every waking thought so that He may extract from me extra-ordinary holiness. I am compelled at every moment toward death so that I may know the value of life all the more. I am compelled towards hatred, murder, even lust at the demise of children, and I lap up their destruction and moral contamination, only so that I may be drawn to love all the more, and the source of Love itself. Great must be the darkness so that the first glimmer of light is all the more visible, so that it arrests my soul like the moth to a flame. Without having witnessed the darkness that is in me, I wouldn't know just how good God is by comparison. From the infinite depths my soul calls down the infinite hand of God, for his arm is not short, and is drawn down like deep unto deep, like a waterfall, so that He may fill the infinite darkness that is me with His infinite light. He comes to me from his infinite graces in his infinite chambers to the infinite hole which is my soul, and somehow fills it. What else but God could accomplish the seemingly impossible! And yet it is no difficulty for Him who first loved me.
I am the way God made me, capable of being filled with His grace, and yet corrupted beyond repair. I am full of evil, and yet redeemed by His mercy, according to His loving-kindness, so that in one touch this soul may be emptied of its eternal, infinite evil, and through Him, be made infinite light. What else but an infinite God could empty an infinitely deep lake? And yet He does not simply empty me, but also fills, and not just with temporary satiation and water of thirst, but with living water, from which I will never need temporary satiation again! Who else but an infinitely merciful God could be capable of that for such a lowly, depraved man like me?
Defeating Depravity
I speak for myself. God had shown me the depths of my own depravity and it's not something I wanted to see, but I had to see it. It was revealed to me over the course of these past couple months of endlessly struggling with sin, falling, and getting back up with the help of his grace and mercy and at his initial calling. I'm not special, but I think God reveals such a thing to everyone willing to recieve it in the same way. My own depravity is complex and deep and dark, seemingly boundless and influenced by more factors that I could even name. In short though, I see that I am nothing but an angry, petulent, stubborn, selfish slob, a whining infant, an arrogant fool, a wishy-washy lukewarm and boldfaced liar, a pitiful glutton and sex addict, a vengeful, wrath-filled beast bent on pleasuring itself at the expense of others, and a hypocrite breathing curses on everyone and everything, always assuming the negative about people, places, and events. I am lead by emotion and sensation and always to detriment, whether my own or another's. I have a record of so-called "wrongs" against people (which aren't even wrongs!) that stretches for miles. I seem to hate everybody and everything.
I see that I am in no way fit in and of myself to walk a spiritual path. In fact, I am not even fit for life itself. Not only am I a long way from holiness, but I can't even say I'm all that close to even living a comfortable carnal existence, nor am I fit to. No. I'm far too depraved to even dream so big, far too wrathful to "win anyone over," and far too self-hating to even appease my own desires. I always have to be pittied! I always have to be consoled! I always have to be the one wronged! In short, I am a wicked, wretched, pathetic demon of a human being unsuitable for life, unsuitable for death, and just all around deplorably, desperately evil. There is absolutely nothing in me of any good, worth, or value to anyone. Like my life, even my DEATH wouldn't be a favor to anyone! I have nothing to offer anyone of my own accord, and no talent to lend. My ambitions are "only evil all the time."
Who can help me? Who would want to? I take the help of others and turn it into a curse against them. Since no one has meant me any ill will, I take vengence on those who have only meant me well! Those who have "wished me the best" out of the kindness of their hearts, those who have benefitted me--those are the people I breathe curses against! I look at children and think nothing but evil towards them and hate society for thinking evil towards them both in the same breath, and never pray for either! I preoccupy my thoughts with their corruption and hate those who corrupt them. I hate it when people are happy, because then they "can't understand me," and I hate it when people are miserable, because then they "can't help me." I hate it when I can't get what I want and when I can get what I want. I spend my days doing what I know to be wrong--so much in fact I feel I could write a whole book on why I know it to be wrong and then go and do it ANYWAY!
I don't trust because my instincts tell me I know better, so I shirk away from every opportunity thaI t could grant me lasting happiness for all my days just because I submit to the fear of the moment. At the same time, all my plans to bring myself happiness on my own terms come to nothing. I don't practice charity because my feelings pull me this way and that instead. I hold grudges, I maintain an exquisitly detailed record of wrongs, I am impatient, unkind, and measure against those I think have wronged me double and triple what I am willing to recieve while being unwilling to give anything of myself either because of fear or laziness, or more often both. All of my faith is in my own cleverness and devices, and so my faith fails me time and time again because it is certainly not in the Lord, who I know to be a more reliable source. I am not even "good" by the world's own standards because half the time I am non-existent in the depth of self-gratification and the other half I am a bitter, vengeful, emotional wreck and a liar to all, and then one who hates himself for being less than perfect.
Not only am I a bad Christian, but my very existence drives others away from the faith and sends the already-faithless running in the opposite direction (may it not be counted against them!). People once on the fence about God I have ended up persuading into atheism by my conduct, and then I refuse to pray for them because I have no dilligence and I listen to the Accuser (Satan) who convinces me that because of my depravity, my prayers will be of no effect. It's amazing sometimes who I find myself listening to and who I find myself ignoring! I excuse my behavior far more than even I know. I lie to myself far more than I know. I was called to holiness and I blow it completely both weekly, daily, and even hourly. I have nothing but a twice-dead corpse to offer to my Father in heaven half the time, my prayers are selfish and distracted and routine, and my penance is a motion like a bodily function, offered up with legalistic impiety for the sake of giving myself something to do (that is, when I can even be bothered with such things). In fact, this whole piece of writing itself should be more than enough of a testament to all the things I have said in it, for I have only confirmed so far what I had started out to say: that I am truly "desperately wicked" and were it not for God showing me this through my endless series of self-imposed struggles, I would have no hope in this life, never mind in the next.
Therefore, getting all that out of the way, I can say quite confidently (more confidently than I can say anything else) that my only hope is God Himself, the Father who created me, the Son who redeemed me with His blood, and the Holy Spirit who strengthens me with His gifts. My only hope is in God. My only strength is in God. My only happiness is in God. Without it, I have no life, I have no worth, nor any good thing. With it, I have everything. No matter how many curses I utter, God spends this time showering His blessings upon me ANYWAYS. No matter what I delight in doing, be it for His glory or my own damnation, God both brings me to repentence and forgives me ANYWAYS. Surely, God must be a good God because just look at me. If a pathetic wretch like this can be loved by God, then truly all things are possible. No matter how jealous I am of good and evil alike, Christ as a man still died for me. Because of something HE did two-thousand or so years before I was born, I have hope now, and NOTHING I do of myself matters, no matter how bad it is. Because He died, I am made fit to live His Life, both in own life and in my death. I can be and do all things because He already did it for me.
This is why I am a Christian: because nothing else offers that kind of limitless hope for so little on my part. That is it. I am not Christian for the fun of it. Because He died, I am made fit for life, even though I am not, and because He rose, I am made spiritually pure and fortified, even though I am not. And who am I that He should do this for me? I am nothing. In fact, before and now the only thing I seem to deserve is what my wicked heart longs for--an eternity in hell. Oh how much I have put myself in hell on a weekly and often daily basis, just because I miss it so. I have been the Judas Iscariot and the Prodigal son on a weekly and often daily or hourly basis, and I've done far worse than they. I squander my inheritance and dishonor my Father and wind up with the swine before noon, crawl back at 3pm begging for mercy so "unfit to be called His son," and then as soon as I see m Father running out to meet me half way I too go out to embrace Him just to slap Him in the face! Just to kiss Him and hand Him over to be put to death.
I sometimes do this daily to my God. I can not seem to cease from doing it. On the other hand, Judas Iscariot only betrayed his savior once, but I do it daily. He killed himself in despair over his sin. I often just laugh in the face of my God over it. Likewise, the Prodigal Son dishonored his father once, repented once, and came back once. I dishonor my Father even more severely daily, repent daily, come back to His embrace daily, just to dishonor Him again before He's even had time to kill the fatted calf for me. So why on earth would God care about me at this point? The answer is simply: because He DOES. That is it. He must see something in me that I don't, something that He knows only He can change, for all I know at this point is how unreliable I am to change anything about myself (God has made that perfectly clear to me). God instead is telling this poor sinner to just trust and persevere: "Just do it Mark, I will sort out the details of getting from here to there, just you go."
It makes no difference what you are when God sees something in you that you don't see, for "faith is hope in things unseen!" You're worth more than what you five senses can tell you about yourself, and faith is that thing that tells you how much this vessle, while perhaps worthless to you, actually means everything to God. Now you can sit there and boastfully gloat about how much of a "depraved sinner" you are Mark, and accomplish as much on your own, or you can use this opportunity to realise just how much God's love and mercy is already being revealed in you through all this depravity and sin. God doesn't offer explanations, only revelations, and revelations take time, especially for those slow on the uptake, but they sink deeper in than mere explanations. Christ taught in parables and proverbs, not in step-by-step instructions. The temple of your body is not an erect-a-set, but more like a million piece jigsaw puzzle that comes with no instructions and you only get to see what it reveals after it has been put together in precisely the right order. If completed, your life will reveal the image of Christ.
You can't cease being a "depraved sinner" and "desperately wicked," but it is of no consquence, because God still loves you for what He knows you can become despite what you are, and only because he does! Afterall, if you had anything else you could boast of, then His glory and love would not be revealed as much as it is. Mark, you are meant to hatae yourself to the point of loving God to the same extent, because otherwise you would love yourself to the point of hating God to the same extent. The fact that you hate your sin and your depravity seems to be enough for Him to have made you exactly as you are, and for good reason! The more you hate the sinner you are, the more you will love God's mercy and forgiveness, and the more you love God (who IS mercy and forgivness), the less you will hate yourself! For who would dare to hate that which God loves? That person would be no better than he who loves what God hates, and surely Mark, God has made you see now more than ever just how much you hate what God hates. Now just love what God loves to the same extent, and only because He loves it, and you will have the "peace that defies all understanding."
So just what about Mark does God love? He loves the fact that He created you, and redeemed you, and called you to hate your sin as much as you do (for He can not love that you sin, of course). Thus, He is sufficient for you in Himself, as the origin and end of all that makes you a wonderful part of His good creation. Had you chose instead to love your sin, you would truly be lost, but as it is, you seem to hate the master you find yourself serving and so find yourself seeking another. That's understandable because God has made you that way, thanks be to Him. But to have God as master is no paradise, you're finding out, and is frought with disappointment, since nothing changes in you just becuase you have changed masters. It's God that orders all creation and it's God that does the change. The seed is planted, the rain waters it, but "to God is the increase" and "one knows not how."
This new Master doesn't want lip service, just your whole heart undivided, which is indeed a taller order than Satan, who is pleased enough with your divided heart. However, this new Master is willing to call your His own son, His own heir to the promise of eternal life, while the old master is content to simply make you his unwitting slave. This new Master is not conceredn with your worthiness, because He is capable of making you worthy with a lot of tough-love. But you'd rather be pleasured and sweet-talked to death by your accuser who will as soon turn on you in the moment of weakness and further destroy you than face any mere disappointment from the "truth that will make you free" and who will strengthen you in your time of weakness to the point of your eternal inheritance of what He has in himself, even to His own death. In short, there is no comparison. You know there is no comparison, and yet you still choose your accuser over the one who has the power to set you free, time and time again.
You know which one your heart truly desires and so do God, which is why He called you. Before you knew it, He already knew why you abandon what your heart longs for again and again for the cheap imitations, and no doubt better than you know it yourself. Do you really want to know why you chose sin over holiness then? Why, if the contrast is so lopsided would you ever chose your accuser over the one who sets you free? As St. Paul had a way of saying: "you are not special." Indeed, "nothing has besought you that is not common to all men." You sin because Adam sinned. It's as simple as that. Just as you have nothing to do with your path to holiness, you have nothing to do with your covetous, desperately wicked heart. It happened without your consent. The fact of the matter now is that you seek God and make that conscious choice, and then you can just stop wondering the wheres and whys. Trust that God knows the wheres and whys, and God knows you are going to sin no matter how hard "you" try at this! The fact that you chose te devil as your master and lord time and time again should be no mystery to you at this point. It's in your blood! It's "genetic."
But God in His good wisdom has given you better blood, spiritual blood, the antidote for the bad blood that you inherited. The blood God gives of Himself is better blood to save you than the blood that has cursed you. Trust in that and the blood that cursed you will die the second death and the blood that you trust in will save you from yourself. Remember that if holiness were possible without a lifetime of sinning, then you would already bear the image of Christ and be where He is. As for you though, a life time of sinning and relying on the graces of God to lift you up each time, if painfully endurred, will become an even greater holiness than it would've been without it (as the Prodigal Son and his more loyal older brother learned), for as our Lord and Savior Himself said, "greater works than these YOU will do," and only if you "love me and keep my commandments." It turns out that to be like God, you have to be like God. How good of Him to give Himself as the example.
Defeating Self-Love
God wanted me to come into His Church. He called me with everything I was and buried me with Himself. He later anointed my head with oil and prepared a banquet for me, all because I responded to His call. He lead me like a shepherd. He became my portion and my cup, whether I recognized it or not. I offered my life for His, just as He offered His for mine. Under His grace alone I could persevere, but the tares and cares of this life, the ambitions and desires of my heart, the lust of the eye, the accusations and despair of the lawless one-- they grew up around me and began to choke me so that because I had given my will to God that these forces might come to steal away what had been sewn. I eventually returned to the Lord at His calling time and time again, the "pitiful, pathetic wretch" I was, and received only his mercy and grace time and time again, but I knew no peace, for my soul cried within me night and day.
I had talents, why should they not be put to better use for so great a Lord? I had strength! I had time! I was young still. Why should I not put my strength use in the fields of the Lord? I had a strong desire to nurture children, why should I not be given the chance by the Lord to bring them up in the way they should go for the Lord? Why should I not be allowed or called to bear those burdens for the Lord? I was lonely. I wanted a companion, a friend. God said it was not good for man to be alone. Why hadn't he given ME so much as a friend? In the meantime, I knew no peace because I still wanted and craved and desired and begged and needed and cried out from the DEEP despair and desolation of my heart every night for God to just "reveal a vocation" for me. I said ANYTHING would've been acceptable to me! After all, He'd done such wonders for me and I just wanted Him to continue surprising me on this journey called life, this pilgrimage. I began to wonder if my cross was to be ever-willing to "lay it all down" to work in the fields of the Lord and yet never be given the directive of just want path to take!
I begged him before the Blessed Sacrament and He did not answer in any definitive way. Was I deceiving myself in some way? What was I doing that was keeping me caged? What was I doing wrong? I was sure my Shepherd was there, but it was as if He'd been hidden from my eyes. I despaired further and further and ended up throwing away so many temptations time and time again at His calling. Then I said I wouldn't want, wouldn't desire, wouldn't be ambitious (for myself or for Him). I said I wouldn't have a child, a friend, or a companion. I told God I would give up these things and would REFUSE them, that I would never have the things I longed for, the things I was sure I needed in life. The Lord would be "my portion entirely" and I would just "trust in Him." I was still being deceived by my own heart.
If He gave me these things, I said I would accept them (and only because who can resist God's will?), but I vowed within myself to HATE and to DESPISE all that God had been "slow" to give me. I said I "no longer wanted ANYTHING." I no longer desired to be ambitious, no longer desires friendships, no longer desired a companion, no longer desire to even "pour my life out for others," but just to have God in the Blessed Sacrament and answer to His call to chastity and inner and outer holiness. I said that if it was His will that I ever do anything other than the daily struggle of holiness, I would accept it and only because He's God. Everything else that wasn't God, I said I had "given up on," and so I lazed about doing nothing but going to Mass, sinning, going to Confession, and working out my own salvation in fear and trembling, as it were. I prayed, but my prayers were answered back only with the sound of the triggers in my brain firing at all times to tell me something more was wrong. And every time I figured it out, and felt satisfied in my own ability to know myself, I only uncovered more and more was wrong.
I was only pretending! God was still no master for me, and I was still acting like I was in charge. I still wanted it all on my terms. I was still proceeding under my own understanding, according to all the great persuasive words and wisdom of my self-sermonizing and self-preaching. I was only doing this because my fear still held me captive to it. I could do nothing but please myself with all my puffed-up vanities and clever turns of phrase and insights that couldn't profit me anything for God is heard in whispers, and His power is greater than all the wisdom of man. I was still allowing my anxiety to stifle me. I was finally being honest with myself. The only reason I hadn't been given any of the things I accused God for being slow to give me was because I had never truly wanted them in the first place. If I had wanted them, I would've sought them out. I didn't seek them out under His guidance, so obviously my whining and complaining that He hadn't given them to me was in vain. It was a fruitless self-torture, struggling to glorify my own life by adorning it with all these things, a way to rack up points on my "bucket list."
I hadn't learned yet how to TRUST, to DO as I wished (whatever was not sinful) but to do it WITH the Lord, recognizing that whatever wasn't sinful was in fact an opportunity for me, and the best opportunity for this soul that Lord in all HIS wisdom had prepared for me from the foundation of the world, and that every moment and second of my life had always been this gift, this opportunity! It was not about me doing the work of God, but just letting the Lord do as He wished through me, allowing Him to present whatever He wanted for my own good. The blinders were lifted, and I saw that my entire life and everything in it right NOW, this second, was given to me as opportunities to carry His will out, whatever I should choose (providing they were not sinful choices). What doesn't kill you, makes you stronger! What isn't sinful, works together for good for those who love God! There is no work on my part! God has given me the life most suited for me in His grace and infinite wisdom, and there is nothing presented to me moment to moment, whether painful or lovely, that can't be put to good use for His glory.
St. Paul teaches that "all things are yours..." Every moment of life is poured out for your benefit, whether sorrow patiently endured or pleasure taken with modesty and contentment, and all for God's glory. But how could I love the God I had not seen when I was still finding every excuse I could to insulate myself from my neighbors who I had seen, both physically and spiritually in prayer? It appears that answer to all discernment is to GO and experiment and wait for God to reveal in this continuous "coming and going" His blessing, His revelation of what you are to do. If you don't experiment, then God can't reveal anything. His words don't descend from on high to just everyone, and certainly not to someone like me. He speaks instead in whispers. He speaks in the heart. It turns out that I was already in the fields of the Lord, and had been my whole life. I just hadn't put my hand to the plow yet.
Deliverance By God
God has delivered me out of bondage to sin, and has loosed me into the new life he will show me, and because of my weakness I still have sinned, but because of His grace, I have not reveled in my sin as I once did. Instead, as a sinner, I am called from my sin to call upon God for His forgiveness, which the scripture says He freely gives! In asking for forgiveness I do not excuse my sin, because His grace is in me, and the guilt of my transgression is still upon me. All sin does is call my attention to my weakness, call my attention to my condemnation, so I thirst all the more for the grace of God to produce in me righteousness. Sin does not cause me to need the Lord, and the Lord does not cause me to sin. The Lord calls me to be sanctified by His grace, whether sin is present or not, so the Lord calls me to need the Lord only, but sin in and of itself only brings me condemnation and a death sentence.
I do well when I wait upon the Lord Almighty to redeem me to such a point where sin has no hold over my actions, and all that I do, think, believe and understand flows forth from him Him, so that His grace pours out on me in full communion with His Body in Christ. The Lord is my shepherd, the Word is His staff by which he directs His flock, and the Church is His fence by which He keeps His flock unto His own. If I should stray in my weakness, the Lord knows me as His own, and He lovingly will break me and bring me back into His fold. If I should stray in my weakness, Christ is there to welcome my return, to give me strength as the Gate to the Father's pasture.
So it is that my sin causes me to go astray from the pasture, and there, fall to death, but it is God that causes me to rise from that death, and rise to life eternal, when I am sincere in my repentance and return. So it is that each time I sin, knowingly or otherwise, I stand guilty before the Lord because I am His, and because I am His my desire to turn from sin is sincere, so by His merit (through Christ), He gives freely His forgiveness in the furtherance of my salvation which is the purpose of His glorification. And He is ever-worthy of more glorification! At all times and everywhere blessed be the name of the Lord!
When I sin the sin of lust, anger, lies, conceit, or any sin I am guilty of, it is because of my weakness. Such does not bring glory to God. If the Spirit of God was not in me, I would feel no remorse, so sin on its own accord has no place in salvation. In fact, in such a case I might even be tempted to justify the sin as somehow bringing glory to Him, and I would have no desire to call upon the Lord for forgiveness, nor would I feel the need for penance or prayer, or sacrifice, so that in my sincerity for righteousness no more unrighteousness proceeds from my hands, mind, eyes, or any of my members.
But because the Spirit of God has chosen me, I am free to serve the Lord and to turn away from sin by the power of God Almighty which He alone grants, either by his own or through His servants. Because God has chosen me, I am free to serve God. I am not at liberty to sin. The sacrifice of Jesus Christ, the only Begotten Son of God, has paid the price for my sin, and so now I am brought by the master and I have no liberty or license to disobey the master, but because the master is all-loving, all-merciful, and has foreseen my weakness, He has seen to it that through the resurrection of His only Begotten Son, His forgiveness knows no bounds if I should ever submit to weakness and fall under sin's grasp for a time. This is because He is more than a master; He is "Abba" Father, and more loving than any earthly one.
In such time I should call upon the Lord to grant me the strength to resist the temptation to sin that plagues me night and day, for I confess before you all and before God that my greatest vice, that which is resigning me to hell and my flesh to death, is LUST, and a despicable form of lust. This lust is not in me (my flesh) so that God may be glorified by it!! It is in my flesh so that I may be delivered unto Hades. God is only glorified when I am righteously adhering to His word, living by faith, and justified by faith alone which is made alive by works, so that the fruits of my faithfulness (where they exist) may fulfill God's holy purpose and that by works of faith my sanctification is carried out before death, so that the second death does not become me and that life abounds eternal instead in my glorified and resurrected body before I can enter with it into the Father's house. Glory and praise be to God from where all grace, love, sanctification, and STRENGTH comes!
The Lord has permitted extra-ordinary evils to fall upon my every waking thought so that He may extract from me extra-ordinary holiness. I am compelled at every moment toward death so that I may know the value of life all the more. I am compelled towards hatred, murder, even lust at the demise of children, and I lap up their destruction and moral contamination, only so that I may be drawn to love all the more, and the source of Love itself. Great must be the darkness so that the first glimmer of light is all the more visible, so that it arrests my soul like the moth to a flame. Without having witnessed the darkness that is in me, I wouldn't know just how good God is by comparison. From the infinite depths my soul calls down the infinite hand of God, for his arm is not short, and is drawn down like deep unto deep, like a waterfall, so that He may fill the infinite darkness that is me with His infinite light. He comes to me from his infinite graces in his infinite chambers to the infinite hole which is my soul, and somehow fills it. What else but God could accomplish the seemingly impossible! And yet it is no difficulty for Him who first loved me.
I am the way God made me, capable of being filled with His grace, and yet corrupted beyond repair. I am full of evil, and yet redeemed by His mercy, according to His loving-kindness, so that in one touch this soul may be emptied of its eternal, infinite evil, and through Him, be made infinite light. What else but an infinite God could empty an infinitely deep lake? And yet He does not simply empty me, but also fills, and not just with temporary satiation and water of thirst, but with living water, from which I will never need temporary satiation again! Who else but an infinitely merciful God could be capable of that for such a lowly, depraved man like me?
Defeating Depravity
I speak for myself. God had shown me the depths of my own depravity and it's not something I wanted to see, but I had to see it. It was revealed to me over the course of these past couple months of endlessly struggling with sin, falling, and getting back up with the help of his grace and mercy and at his initial calling. I'm not special, but I think God reveals such a thing to everyone willing to recieve it in the same way. My own depravity is complex and deep and dark, seemingly boundless and influenced by more factors that I could even name. In short though, I see that I am nothing but an angry, petulent, stubborn, selfish slob, a whining infant, an arrogant fool, a wishy-washy lukewarm and boldfaced liar, a pitiful glutton and sex addict, a vengeful, wrath-filled beast bent on pleasuring itself at the expense of others, and a hypocrite breathing curses on everyone and everything, always assuming the negative about people, places, and events. I am lead by emotion and sensation and always to detriment, whether my own or another's. I have a record of so-called "wrongs" against people (which aren't even wrongs!) that stretches for miles. I seem to hate everybody and everything.
I see that I am in no way fit in and of myself to walk a spiritual path. In fact, I am not even fit for life itself. Not only am I a long way from holiness, but I can't even say I'm all that close to even living a comfortable carnal existence, nor am I fit to. No. I'm far too depraved to even dream so big, far too wrathful to "win anyone over," and far too self-hating to even appease my own desires. I always have to be pittied! I always have to be consoled! I always have to be the one wronged! In short, I am a wicked, wretched, pathetic demon of a human being unsuitable for life, unsuitable for death, and just all around deplorably, desperately evil. There is absolutely nothing in me of any good, worth, or value to anyone. Like my life, even my DEATH wouldn't be a favor to anyone! I have nothing to offer anyone of my own accord, and no talent to lend. My ambitions are "only evil all the time."
Who can help me? Who would want to? I take the help of others and turn it into a curse against them. Since no one has meant me any ill will, I take vengence on those who have only meant me well! Those who have "wished me the best" out of the kindness of their hearts, those who have benefitted me--those are the people I breathe curses against! I look at children and think nothing but evil towards them and hate society for thinking evil towards them both in the same breath, and never pray for either! I preoccupy my thoughts with their corruption and hate those who corrupt them. I hate it when people are happy, because then they "can't understand me," and I hate it when people are miserable, because then they "can't help me." I hate it when I can't get what I want and when I can get what I want. I spend my days doing what I know to be wrong--so much in fact I feel I could write a whole book on why I know it to be wrong and then go and do it ANYWAY!
I don't trust because my instincts tell me I know better, so I shirk away from every opportunity thaI t could grant me lasting happiness for all my days just because I submit to the fear of the moment. At the same time, all my plans to bring myself happiness on my own terms come to nothing. I don't practice charity because my feelings pull me this way and that instead. I hold grudges, I maintain an exquisitly detailed record of wrongs, I am impatient, unkind, and measure against those I think have wronged me double and triple what I am willing to recieve while being unwilling to give anything of myself either because of fear or laziness, or more often both. All of my faith is in my own cleverness and devices, and so my faith fails me time and time again because it is certainly not in the Lord, who I know to be a more reliable source. I am not even "good" by the world's own standards because half the time I am non-existent in the depth of self-gratification and the other half I am a bitter, vengeful, emotional wreck and a liar to all, and then one who hates himself for being less than perfect.
Not only am I a bad Christian, but my very existence drives others away from the faith and sends the already-faithless running in the opposite direction (may it not be counted against them!). People once on the fence about God I have ended up persuading into atheism by my conduct, and then I refuse to pray for them because I have no dilligence and I listen to the Accuser (Satan) who convinces me that because of my depravity, my prayers will be of no effect. It's amazing sometimes who I find myself listening to and who I find myself ignoring! I excuse my behavior far more than even I know. I lie to myself far more than I know. I was called to holiness and I blow it completely both weekly, daily, and even hourly. I have nothing but a twice-dead corpse to offer to my Father in heaven half the time, my prayers are selfish and distracted and routine, and my penance is a motion like a bodily function, offered up with legalistic impiety for the sake of giving myself something to do (that is, when I can even be bothered with such things). In fact, this whole piece of writing itself should be more than enough of a testament to all the things I have said in it, for I have only confirmed so far what I had started out to say: that I am truly "desperately wicked" and were it not for God showing me this through my endless series of self-imposed struggles, I would have no hope in this life, never mind in the next.
Therefore, getting all that out of the way, I can say quite confidently (more confidently than I can say anything else) that my only hope is God Himself, the Father who created me, the Son who redeemed me with His blood, and the Holy Spirit who strengthens me with His gifts. My only hope is in God. My only strength is in God. My only happiness is in God. Without it, I have no life, I have no worth, nor any good thing. With it, I have everything. No matter how many curses I utter, God spends this time showering His blessings upon me ANYWAYS. No matter what I delight in doing, be it for His glory or my own damnation, God both brings me to repentence and forgives me ANYWAYS. Surely, God must be a good God because just look at me. If a pathetic wretch like this can be loved by God, then truly all things are possible. No matter how jealous I am of good and evil alike, Christ as a man still died for me. Because of something HE did two-thousand or so years before I was born, I have hope now, and NOTHING I do of myself matters, no matter how bad it is. Because He died, I am made fit to live His Life, both in own life and in my death. I can be and do all things because He already did it for me.
This is why I am a Christian: because nothing else offers that kind of limitless hope for so little on my part. That is it. I am not Christian for the fun of it. Because He died, I am made fit for life, even though I am not, and because He rose, I am made spiritually pure and fortified, even though I am not. And who am I that He should do this for me? I am nothing. In fact, before and now the only thing I seem to deserve is what my wicked heart longs for--an eternity in hell. Oh how much I have put myself in hell on a weekly and often daily basis, just because I miss it so. I have been the Judas Iscariot and the Prodigal son on a weekly and often daily or hourly basis, and I've done far worse than they. I squander my inheritance and dishonor my Father and wind up with the swine before noon, crawl back at 3pm begging for mercy so "unfit to be called His son," and then as soon as I see m Father running out to meet me half way I too go out to embrace Him just to slap Him in the face! Just to kiss Him and hand Him over to be put to death.
I sometimes do this daily to my God. I can not seem to cease from doing it. On the other hand, Judas Iscariot only betrayed his savior once, but I do it daily. He killed himself in despair over his sin. I often just laugh in the face of my God over it. Likewise, the Prodigal Son dishonored his father once, repented once, and came back once. I dishonor my Father even more severely daily, repent daily, come back to His embrace daily, just to dishonor Him again before He's even had time to kill the fatted calf for me. So why on earth would God care about me at this point? The answer is simply: because He DOES. That is it. He must see something in me that I don't, something that He knows only He can change, for all I know at this point is how unreliable I am to change anything about myself (God has made that perfectly clear to me). God instead is telling this poor sinner to just trust and persevere: "Just do it Mark, I will sort out the details of getting from here to there, just you go."
It makes no difference what you are when God sees something in you that you don't see, for "faith is hope in things unseen!" You're worth more than what you five senses can tell you about yourself, and faith is that thing that tells you how much this vessle, while perhaps worthless to you, actually means everything to God. Now you can sit there and boastfully gloat about how much of a "depraved sinner" you are Mark, and accomplish as much on your own, or you can use this opportunity to realise just how much God's love and mercy is already being revealed in you through all this depravity and sin. God doesn't offer explanations, only revelations, and revelations take time, especially for those slow on the uptake, but they sink deeper in than mere explanations. Christ taught in parables and proverbs, not in step-by-step instructions. The temple of your body is not an erect-a-set, but more like a million piece jigsaw puzzle that comes with no instructions and you only get to see what it reveals after it has been put together in precisely the right order. If completed, your life will reveal the image of Christ.
You can't cease being a "depraved sinner" and "desperately wicked," but it is of no consquence, because God still loves you for what He knows you can become despite what you are, and only because he does! Afterall, if you had anything else you could boast of, then His glory and love would not be revealed as much as it is. Mark, you are meant to hatae yourself to the point of loving God to the same extent, because otherwise you would love yourself to the point of hating God to the same extent. The fact that you hate your sin and your depravity seems to be enough for Him to have made you exactly as you are, and for good reason! The more you hate the sinner you are, the more you will love God's mercy and forgiveness, and the more you love God (who IS mercy and forgivness), the less you will hate yourself! For who would dare to hate that which God loves? That person would be no better than he who loves what God hates, and surely Mark, God has made you see now more than ever just how much you hate what God hates. Now just love what God loves to the same extent, and only because He loves it, and you will have the "peace that defies all understanding."
So just what about Mark does God love? He loves the fact that He created you, and redeemed you, and called you to hate your sin as much as you do (for He can not love that you sin, of course). Thus, He is sufficient for you in Himself, as the origin and end of all that makes you a wonderful part of His good creation. Had you chose instead to love your sin, you would truly be lost, but as it is, you seem to hate the master you find yourself serving and so find yourself seeking another. That's understandable because God has made you that way, thanks be to Him. But to have God as master is no paradise, you're finding out, and is frought with disappointment, since nothing changes in you just becuase you have changed masters. It's God that orders all creation and it's God that does the change. The seed is planted, the rain waters it, but "to God is the increase" and "one knows not how."
This new Master doesn't want lip service, just your whole heart undivided, which is indeed a taller order than Satan, who is pleased enough with your divided heart. However, this new Master is willing to call your His own son, His own heir to the promise of eternal life, while the old master is content to simply make you his unwitting slave. This new Master is not conceredn with your worthiness, because He is capable of making you worthy with a lot of tough-love. But you'd rather be pleasured and sweet-talked to death by your accuser who will as soon turn on you in the moment of weakness and further destroy you than face any mere disappointment from the "truth that will make you free" and who will strengthen you in your time of weakness to the point of your eternal inheritance of what He has in himself, even to His own death. In short, there is no comparison. You know there is no comparison, and yet you still choose your accuser over the one who has the power to set you free, time and time again.
You know which one your heart truly desires and so do God, which is why He called you. Before you knew it, He already knew why you abandon what your heart longs for again and again for the cheap imitations, and no doubt better than you know it yourself. Do you really want to know why you chose sin over holiness then? Why, if the contrast is so lopsided would you ever chose your accuser over the one who sets you free? As St. Paul had a way of saying: "you are not special." Indeed, "nothing has besought you that is not common to all men." You sin because Adam sinned. It's as simple as that. Just as you have nothing to do with your path to holiness, you have nothing to do with your covetous, desperately wicked heart. It happened without your consent. The fact of the matter now is that you seek God and make that conscious choice, and then you can just stop wondering the wheres and whys. Trust that God knows the wheres and whys, and God knows you are going to sin no matter how hard "you" try at this! The fact that you chose te devil as your master and lord time and time again should be no mystery to you at this point. It's in your blood! It's "genetic."
But God in His good wisdom has given you better blood, spiritual blood, the antidote for the bad blood that you inherited. The blood God gives of Himself is better blood to save you than the blood that has cursed you. Trust in that and the blood that cursed you will die the second death and the blood that you trust in will save you from yourself. Remember that if holiness were possible without a lifetime of sinning, then you would already bear the image of Christ and be where He is. As for you though, a life time of sinning and relying on the graces of God to lift you up each time, if painfully endurred, will become an even greater holiness than it would've been without it (as the Prodigal Son and his more loyal older brother learned), for as our Lord and Savior Himself said, "greater works than these YOU will do," and only if you "love me and keep my commandments." It turns out that to be like God, you have to be like God. How good of Him to give Himself as the example.
Defeating Self-Love
God wanted me to come into His Church. He called me with everything I was and buried me with Himself. He later anointed my head with oil and prepared a banquet for me, all because I responded to His call. He lead me like a shepherd. He became my portion and my cup, whether I recognized it or not. I offered my life for His, just as He offered His for mine. Under His grace alone I could persevere, but the tares and cares of this life, the ambitions and desires of my heart, the lust of the eye, the accusations and despair of the lawless one-- they grew up around me and began to choke me so that because I had given my will to God that these forces might come to steal away what had been sewn. I eventually returned to the Lord at His calling time and time again, the "pitiful, pathetic wretch" I was, and received only his mercy and grace time and time again, but I knew no peace, for my soul cried within me night and day.
I had talents, why should they not be put to better use for so great a Lord? I had strength! I had time! I was young still. Why should I not put my strength use in the fields of the Lord? I had a strong desire to nurture children, why should I not be given the chance by the Lord to bring them up in the way they should go for the Lord? Why should I not be allowed or called to bear those burdens for the Lord? I was lonely. I wanted a companion, a friend. God said it was not good for man to be alone. Why hadn't he given ME so much as a friend? In the meantime, I knew no peace because I still wanted and craved and desired and begged and needed and cried out from the DEEP despair and desolation of my heart every night for God to just "reveal a vocation" for me. I said ANYTHING would've been acceptable to me! After all, He'd done such wonders for me and I just wanted Him to continue surprising me on this journey called life, this pilgrimage. I began to wonder if my cross was to be ever-willing to "lay it all down" to work in the fields of the Lord and yet never be given the directive of just want path to take!
I begged him before the Blessed Sacrament and He did not answer in any definitive way. Was I deceiving myself in some way? What was I doing that was keeping me caged? What was I doing wrong? I was sure my Shepherd was there, but it was as if He'd been hidden from my eyes. I despaired further and further and ended up throwing away so many temptations time and time again at His calling. Then I said I wouldn't want, wouldn't desire, wouldn't be ambitious (for myself or for Him). I said I wouldn't have a child, a friend, or a companion. I told God I would give up these things and would REFUSE them, that I would never have the things I longed for, the things I was sure I needed in life. The Lord would be "my portion entirely" and I would just "trust in Him." I was still being deceived by my own heart.
If He gave me these things, I said I would accept them (and only because who can resist God's will?), but I vowed within myself to HATE and to DESPISE all that God had been "slow" to give me. I said I "no longer wanted ANYTHING." I no longer desired to be ambitious, no longer desires friendships, no longer desired a companion, no longer desire to even "pour my life out for others," but just to have God in the Blessed Sacrament and answer to His call to chastity and inner and outer holiness. I said that if it was His will that I ever do anything other than the daily struggle of holiness, I would accept it and only because He's God. Everything else that wasn't God, I said I had "given up on," and so I lazed about doing nothing but going to Mass, sinning, going to Confession, and working out my own salvation in fear and trembling, as it were. I prayed, but my prayers were answered back only with the sound of the triggers in my brain firing at all times to tell me something more was wrong. And every time I figured it out, and felt satisfied in my own ability to know myself, I only uncovered more and more was wrong.
I was only pretending! God was still no master for me, and I was still acting like I was in charge. I still wanted it all on my terms. I was still proceeding under my own understanding, according to all the great persuasive words and wisdom of my self-sermonizing and self-preaching. I was only doing this because my fear still held me captive to it. I could do nothing but please myself with all my puffed-up vanities and clever turns of phrase and insights that couldn't profit me anything for God is heard in whispers, and His power is greater than all the wisdom of man. I was still allowing my anxiety to stifle me. I was finally being honest with myself. The only reason I hadn't been given any of the things I accused God for being slow to give me was because I had never truly wanted them in the first place. If I had wanted them, I would've sought them out. I didn't seek them out under His guidance, so obviously my whining and complaining that He hadn't given them to me was in vain. It was a fruitless self-torture, struggling to glorify my own life by adorning it with all these things, a way to rack up points on my "bucket list."
I hadn't learned yet how to TRUST, to DO as I wished (whatever was not sinful) but to do it WITH the Lord, recognizing that whatever wasn't sinful was in fact an opportunity for me, and the best opportunity for this soul that Lord in all HIS wisdom had prepared for me from the foundation of the world, and that every moment and second of my life had always been this gift, this opportunity! It was not about me doing the work of God, but just letting the Lord do as He wished through me, allowing Him to present whatever He wanted for my own good. The blinders were lifted, and I saw that my entire life and everything in it right NOW, this second, was given to me as opportunities to carry His will out, whatever I should choose (providing they were not sinful choices). What doesn't kill you, makes you stronger! What isn't sinful, works together for good for those who love God! There is no work on my part! God has given me the life most suited for me in His grace and infinite wisdom, and there is nothing presented to me moment to moment, whether painful or lovely, that can't be put to good use for His glory.
St. Paul teaches that "all things are yours..." Every moment of life is poured out for your benefit, whether sorrow patiently endured or pleasure taken with modesty and contentment, and all for God's glory. But how could I love the God I had not seen when I was still finding every excuse I could to insulate myself from my neighbors who I had seen, both physically and spiritually in prayer? It appears that answer to all discernment is to GO and experiment and wait for God to reveal in this continuous "coming and going" His blessing, His revelation of what you are to do. If you don't experiment, then God can't reveal anything. His words don't descend from on high to just everyone, and certainly not to someone like me. He speaks instead in whispers. He speaks in the heart. It turns out that I was already in the fields of the Lord, and had been my whole life. I just hadn't put my hand to the plow yet.
You are my friend. U/R my friend.
ReplyDeleteYou touched my soul.
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