How He Loves

After a long day at work and some studying for school, I decided to look up a music video of my current favorite song, "How He loves" by the David Crowder Band. The more I reflect upon the lyrics of the song with the passion in which it is sung, I can't but help but be drawn to prayer. I am not usually the guy who stops his car after parking in the parking lot at the grocery story to then close his eyes and start to weep because he understands the great love the Father has for him. But as I was driving home today, this was the very experience I found myself having. "How He Loves" was playing on the radio and I was moved with great peace and tears. I had a moment of clarity in the midst of life's confusion. "Nothing else mattered! God loves me!"

And don't get me wrong, I am not the kind of hold hands and dance around Jesus is a nice guy sort of dude. I believe Jesus is the Son of God and the Lord of my life. I know that He is the great warrior sent to battle death and Satan, which He defeated upon Calvary by the act of loving obedience to the Father on the Cross! Now, in my room, with my guitar in hand, I start to play the song that brought me to such a great heights earlier today. And then, the Holy Spirit speaks...I remember the verse that Father Randy Timmerman preached on so long ago (3 years now) when I was a missionary on campus at UW-Madison. I ran to my Bible and opened up the word of God and read these words, "And Jesus looking upon him loved him." (Mark 10:21a) Yes, The young man that knelt fore Jesus and called Jesus, "Good Teacher" The young man that knelt before him and said that he had kept the commandments. Jesus gazed upon him with love. I went back to playing guitar and praying and picturing myself in the scene. Jesus is looking upon me, He is looking upon you with Great love!

I thought about this young man, that knelt before Jesus. He wanted so badly to be justified for being good...for playing by the rules. I could hear him say, "Haven't I done enough...What more can I do?" Jesus demands him to give everything and to come and follow him. Jesus desired to walk closely with this young man, closely like he was with Peter, Matthew, John, and the other apostles. Jesus wanted this man to live the fullness life in total communion with Him. But the young man, even knowing that he was made for more, could not grasp the courage to follow Jesus. But as the young man walked away, Jesus did not remove his loving glance, the gaze that reveals hearts. Jesus would not water down the Gospel and make it some second rate version, though. He knew all he could do was look upon the young man with love and invite that young man to Follow Him! It would not be long that Jesus would look with love from the Cross that think of that young man and die there on the Cross for Him. It is the gaze of the Cross that truly revealing the loving glance of Jesus Christ! This same loving look that this young man received from Jesus is the same one you and I receive from Him. Oh, How he loves us!

Compete Well For the Faith

So maybe you never read the Bible or maybe you are like the way I use to be and not realize that the readings at Mass are from the Bible. (It is a running joke with my non-Catholic friends that Catholics don't read the Bible) I am usually struck by a word or two during the Mass from the Scripture readings. Today, I was struck by one phrase in particularly which comes from 1 Timothy 6:12, "Compete well for the faith." Why did just a simple phrase speak so deeply to my heart. There are two reasons.

The first reason is the reminder that I need to have a sporting spirit about everything in life, even my life of faith (which actually impacts everything that I believe) Our lives are full of ups and downs and there is going to be temptations to be discouraged and feel like a failure. I remember playing football in high schools on the offensive line. Sometimes I knocked the guy across from me on his back and the running back would be able to breeze by the hole I created with ease and other times I would miss the guy completely and the running back would be tackled for a loss. (Boy were those incidents embarrassing on film) But after that moment happened that moment didn't matter anymore. The only thing that matter was the decision that I would make next. Would I beat myself up, or would I get back up and try to win the next down. This is what I am referring to as the sporting spirit. St Josemaria comments on this topic by saying, "Tackling serious matters with a sporting spirit gives very good results. Perhaps I have lost several games? Very well, but — if I persevere — in the end I shall win." (Furrow 169)

The second thing that was brought to my mind is that life is not easy, especially the Christian life. But who said it was going to be easy. First I am not sure of any great person in this world that did not have to struggle and persevere for something. Things are handed to us on a silver platter. Think about your own life experiences. When do things taste the sweetest? The greatest victory for a sports team is an upset of the number 1 team or bouncing back after a disappointing loss. It is those who learn to persevere through what seems to be apparent failure to make it to their end in joyful pursuit! Remember that Michael Jordan commercial

Our failures will ultimately lead to our successes if we tackling them with what Josemaria calls the Sporting Spirit or Stephen Covey refers to as the Habit of Proactivity. And we must always remember the words of St Paul to the Romans, "We know that in everything God works for good with thos who love him , who are called according to his purpose," (Romans 8:28)

Each Moment Matters

Today I had one of those awkward moments that most of will partake in at sometime in our lives of riding with a complete stranger in the elevator. This is happens quite often in my job since 1) I am a missionary and part of my job is meeting complete strangers (however I only have one degree of separation with all people due to my good friend Jesus)2) My office is at the top of a five story office building.

The conversation wasn't long and it wasn't really about anything of importance. I try to open it up by talking about how it is easy to forget the beautiful sunshine outside when we spend all day in the office building. The man concurred but instantly turned to reality that winter was not far away. I told him that I was moving out here from much closer places and I wasn't too worried "Beep" We had gone two floors and both parted to go our separate ways.

But being the kind of person that I am, I started to think about this encounter a little bit more and the situation that we find ourselves in each day. I got thinking about this man and his situation of not even thinking about enjoying the outdoors while the sun was shinning bright and it isn't too cold outside, but the fact that winter is almost here when fall has not quite started to bring sick feeling to my stomach like Christmas decoration in stories before Halloween has even commenced.

Lets step back in Philosophical history to a man by the name of Henri Heidegger. Heideggar was an existentialist and one of his primary principles was what he called authenticity and authenticity is the understanding of the experience of something in its present moment but seeing it as it is ordered toward death. That is a mouth full! Think about it this way. We come to know something, say moment, a ray of sunshine coming in from above the dances through the leaves of the trees and sprinkles down upon the locks of your hair and your fell the heat and your experience the sunshine, but don't just experience this, but understand that the experience will pass away to coldness and death! Now I am not proposing that this man in the elevator understood this philosophical principle or anything to do with Henri Heide-who?, but he has been effected by the the progressive thought of our culture and seemed to walk away without even an openess to taste the beauty of the sunshine this day.

Now, Heidegger may be dancing with some truths, but he not putting forth a true Christian view. The Christian view of experience is much more human. It is not something that just stays in our minds and hasn't be effected by the past and won't effect the future. In fact in every moment we are able to reach the heights of experience, to transcend the material into the immaterial through our thoughts and ideas, and maybe even a conversation with the highest of immaterial beings, God! Now let me take a step back, what do I mean by material, I mean things that you can sense through taste, hearing, smell, touch, and see! But we can't see our thought, we can't see our ideas, but we have these immaterial thoughts all the time. And it is proof that they are immaterial because the more we learn, our heads don't get bigger, but it seems there is a spiritual element to knowledge, meaning that it is can't be measured by pure matter or material things.

This must be why St Paul referred to faith with the Greek word pistis , which mean knowledge. Faith is a knowledge of God. It is this very faith that gives us awe at every moment that God is our midst, no matter if we are experiencing a sunrise, a traffic jam, an opera, a bad meeting, or on our knees in the Church. Knowledge of God, is faith! But this faith is not separated from our reason like make of the followers of Luther started to proclaim (and even Luther himself). There is no faith without reason. Think about it, what do we have faith in...well maybe you will say Jesus, but where do you get the understanding that Jesus is who he is...the Scriptures right (and Tradition for those Catholics out there, like myself, but you cannot trust revelation without reason, because Jesus did not try to bypass into our minds a thought of him, but entered the drama of human history, so that we can say we St. John "That which was from the beginning, which we have heard, which we have seen with our eyes, which we have looked upon and touched with our hands, concerning the word of life." (1 John 1:1) The revelation of Jesus in the incarnation becomes the point where knowledge becomes faith. This faith in the God-Man shapes all of human history and each moment of our lives.

We are called to live in the present moment and the present moment must be lived with God. There are so many temptations to just be temporary or just pass through or get by in daily life that we forgot to see God acting in our lives through its common events and the people we meet, the Word of God in Scripture and the Holy Spirit speaking in our hearts. This is the true gift of wisdom! Today, meditate how God is working in your life. Do you only see things ordered to death? Or do you see the connection between death and life? What will you experience today that will dive you in deeper to the eternal hope of glory with God the father!

I close with the words from a Carmelite monk who writes in a book named Divine Intimacy:

The gift of wisdom leads us to peace: the interior peace of the soul who, having tasted God, gives itself to Him without reserve, in complete surrender to His divine will; the serene peace of one who, seeing God in all things, accepts the hardships of life without being disturbed, adoring God's providence in all.