Going out of Your Way

What does God expect us to do for others?

Well in short, anything and everything that we possibly can. How scary is that? Putting others above ourselves? It almost seems contradictory to human nature, but I believe that is part of the challenge. It is not easy, but God expects us to do what Jesus taught us: to "to treat others as you wish to be treated." Now this blog is about everyday Christian life, so lets apply it to the everyday scenario. What does God expect us to do on a daily basis? The answer remains the same: everything and anything. However if you think about it, it really isn't that hard. Giving someone a ride home for school, taking on some extra work for your buddy, these things do not need to be difficult, they just need to be sincere. If someone asks for help, give it and give it as fully as you possibly can. If someone appears to need help, do the same. If someone is doing perfectly fine, boost them up farther. Do these things without a thought about any inconvenience it might cause you. We must go out of our way. Giving compliments, gifts and friendly conversations; deeds like these will help us grow together as a community and in turn, as a community closer to God.

We cannot expect any personal benefit in return for our good deeds. The Jesuit "Prayer for Generosity" is something we students at strake pray together once a week. It illustrates the content of a true charitable heart. "To labor and not to ask for reward, save that of knowing I do your will." God calls us not to hold others indebt to our charity. It is charity after all, not some kind of loan of good will. That last part is important however: "Save that of knowing I do your will." There is something in every human heart that makes us happy when we help others. Something that makes us feel like maybe charity is not so far out of the realm of human nature after all. Something that makes us feel like maybe God is happy with us, and I feel like this is what our prayer is talking about: the joy of doing the work of the lord. It is more than enough to repay any good deed.

At some points in our lives God may call us to make great sacrifices for those around us. Relief workers who spend their lives in third world countries, non profit organizations that build homes for the poor, even our own mothers have all spent a considerable amount of time and effort to raise us. These kinds of people have answered Christ's commandment of love above all others. They have gone beyond to reaches of daily charity and instead dedicated their lives to such acts. And if you ask me, if they do it in the name of God, there will be no happier people to be found on the face of the earth.

-Austin

love is subjective

In our Culture of Catholicism, love is extremely important to have. Love is why God created us in the first place, so that he can love us and so we can love him. In the world, we have so many different types of love, there's is brother and sister love, romantic love, best friend love, and even love for maybe something we do. Why I think love is so important for life and my faith is because love is life giving. So if we choose to reject love, we are rejecting life and God.

God looking out for us

God always is looking after us even when we think he's not which is why there's a story I'm going to tell a story. There was a girl named abbe and abbe has had a rough day. At the end of the day she turned to God and told her about her day. She started from beginning by saying:

 

Abbe: God, where were you today? I needed you today and you were nowhere to be found. When I woke up this morning I couldn’t make breakfast because the power was out. Once I got breakfast, traffic had already built up so I was 10 minutes late to work so my boss made me stay 30 minutes extra later which would normally be ok but I had to pick up the kids from school. Then when I picked up my kids, I found out my oldest son had just gotten in trouble for fighting. Before we could get home I had gotten a flat tire. Where were you God?

 

God: Oh Abbe, I look after and love you more than you think. I cut the power off to your street this morning because there was a gas leak which would have resulted in a hug fire that would have taken down your house, and if you would have not been 10 minutes late to work, your boss would have dumped a huge expense report on you that would have resulted in you staying overtime for the rest of the week. Also, if you wouldn’t have stayed after work for 30 minutes, you would have been involved in a terrible car crash. The fight that your son got in was for another girl that was being bullied by three guys that were calling her terrible names and were trying to grab her but your son stepped in and stuck up for someone that he didn’t even know and the three guys ran away as soon as the teacher came. Your son gave that girl confidences that not all boys are bad people and will become best friends with son. The reason I gave you a flat tire was because since you were speeding home, you would have hit the person around the corner that was walking.

 

Abbe: …I'm so sorry God, I should have never doubted you. I love you

 

God: I forgive you Abbe. Know that I am also looking after you and your family and don't think I don’t answer your prayers or anyone else, it's just most of the time the answer is no. I will always know what's best for you.

Messing up

What does God expect of us after we make a mistake?

I struggle with this one. Its a tough question to ask yourself; "what do I have to do to make up for what I have done?" I am going to share my experience with mistakes and how to fix them.

I believe that we are all responsible for our own sins. We are all created sinful and it is human nature to just plain screw up sometimes: no one is free from it. While we may not have the choice of being completely holy during our time on earth, we do have the choice be as close to that as possible. I believe that's what god calls us  to do, and part of accomplishing that is making up for our sins. Jesus gave us something wonderful in anticipation of such a need, the sacrament of reconciliation. This cleans us of our sins and reminds us that God will give forgiveness to anyone as long as they seek it. There is no such thing s a sin too great to be forgiven. However, it is very difficult if not impossible to go to reconciliation for all our sins. I know if I did that I could rarely leave the church. So what does God call us to do outside of the sacrament in order to show we are truly sorry? I believe we have to look to ourselves in order to find that truth.

I will now speak directly from my opinion about sin. I think God gave us all a part of our mind dedicated specifically to knowing when we have messed up, and what we need to do in order to fix it. We call it the conscience. The conscience controls our guilt. It makes us feel bad about things that we feel are wrong. When I feel guilty, I believe that it is God telling me that I have done something wrong and I need to fix it. When I do, the guilt goes away. What a wonderful system. Its almost like good implanted a sin detector or something inside of our minds. I also believe that the more we listen to our conscience, the stronger it gets and the closer we become to God. I also don't believe that pleasing a guilty conscience is all that difficult, but it requires letting go of pride. In many cases a simple apology, a brief ignorance of self, to fix an offense to most people. Other times it is to God himself we must apologize, and that is even easier: God always forgives after all.

Hard times for better

In our everyday lives, us as humans beings aren't perfect and all aren't the same. We have arguments and disputes over big and little things and it can sometimes make us feel lost or misunderstood but to every problem, there is a solution. Sometimes the solution isn't an answer but a lesson. I have always heard people say "learn from your mistakes," and I have taken that into consideration and have certainly applied it. I have never tired to apply it though to God. When we make mistakes in our faith, it is harder to learn from the mistake we have made because God is very forgiving because he loves us. So how we learn from our mistakes with God is to love him and want him the same way he loves us.

Prayers of Petition

Does God take requests?

Its been discussed a thousand times. We even studied it this year in Theology with the good Mr. Cole, and officially the answer is yes. But we are also taught that cannot allow for us to have everything we pray for because our desires are imperfect. But this can be frustrating. What is the use in praying if God is going to do whatever he wants with our lives anyway? I'm going to share my experience with prayer.

As a kid I heard something that stuck with me or awhile. It was something that my mother had heard in church and later passed to me. It was this: "God always gives you what you want, but in a different and unexpected way." And honestly, I can remember being thrilled by this news. Being lower school student at the time all I heard was "God always gives you what you want." But unfortunately for me I soon found out that I could not make new possessions materialize out of thin air or banish my enemies with a simple request to my God. It doesn't work like that. In fact, thank God it doesn't because I certainly requested things that I now regret ever requesting. And that is kind of the point I'm getting at. In a way, we are all still little kids. None of us truly understand exactly how this world works or what is right one hundred percent of the time. Knowing that, we then realize that having all of our requests granted would mean disaster. Once we realize this, we can change our attitudes toward God's decisions to a very positive one. We can realize that God is the ultimate truth, and we can appreciate the fact that he is the final authority on what does and does not come to pass.