Here I Am

Can you recall this past Sunday's readings? In the first reading Jeremiah is trying to fight the Lord, just like we fight God, but admits that the very name of God becomes like burning fire in his heart that he can no longer contain inside himself. This is true for all of us. There comes a time when we either accept our cross and carry it, with this comes persecution, or we try to pretend we have nothing to share, but inside of us something is still there and it will not leave us alone.

You know you have those moments when God has won in your life and you are happy He has...that was how I felt on Sunday upon hearing this first reading. I, like many of my friends, have been duped by the Lord. We have tasted true joy and love and nothing else will ever satisfy. I am His dignified instrument to share love and truth to the rest of the world and I cannot keep inside me everything He has given me no matter how hard it gets to share that.

On the streets its been interesting for me to experience persecution. I am not really someone people confront and disagree with often (shocker I know) but on the streets some people just see the name Christ on my shirt and they come at me with everything they got. My natural instinct is to get angry, but instead I just listen to them and accept it because someone else has hurt them using the name of Christ. Someone else has wounded them and I am unified with Christ because all I want to do is talk to them, but they are too closed off because they are afraid of being hurt. They are so closed off that love and grace also cannot come in. It is humbling because I lose my identity and all they see is the name of Christ, which I guess is the way it is supposed to be, but if only they knew the truth of who Christ is.

Psalm 62 and 63 are my favorite because they bring me into that love relationship with Christ. My soul clings fast to you, O Lord! We cannot do anything unless we realize how much we NEED God. Our world preaches autonomy, but this is not how we were created. We were created to be children of God and completely rely upon Him for everything, but since He has given us the capacity to reason and freewill to choose we can refuse His help. However, even if convince ourselves we don't need God our souls do need Him. Our souls thirst for Him and nothing else can satisfy. 

There is a certain part of Denver that this man I met calls The Great Depression. It is a place where drug dealers and addicts hang out 24/7. Everyone knows about it, but everyone has given up hope on the people that are enslaved to their fleshly desires. The cops no longer do anything to actually help them and the general public is to afraid to go near there or to even acknowledge them. But they are human and in all their desiring they need the love of Christ.

Man being given the likeness with God shows that the essence and existence of man is related to God in a very profound way. Man can deny, ignore, forget or even dismiss any relationship with God, but the connection of man's dignity coming from God can never be eliminated. Man is who he is because God is who he is. Man is on a constant search for something outside himself, but often gets enslaved to other things that he believe will make him free, but actually has the opposite effect. I drink because I want to forget how sad I am, but it is actually a depressant and will make things worse. I want to do this or that drug because I just rather not feel the awful reality that is going on around me, but then the addiction becomes the problem and everything around you falls apart... etc.

God has put eternity into man's heart and mind, but the devil often wants us to forget about eternity. Instead, to just live weekend to weekend, but unless we are conscience of the fact that everything we do goes beyond weekend to weekend, but affects eternity we might start living differently. Our reason is the gift of being able to discern between good and evil and our freewill the gift of choosing our path. However, choosing evil (something that goes our nature) is not freeing, but it enslaves.

St. Augustine said it best, "You have made us for yourself, O Lord, and our hearts are restless until they rest in you."

"Do not conform yourselves to this age
but be transformed by the renewal of your mind,
that you may discern what is the will of God,
what is good and pleasing and perfect."


In the Gospel God calls us to 3 things in life:
1. to deny ourselves: we weren't created just to be free and exist on this earth, but to be in a love relationship with God. to love and be loved.
2. to take up our cross: every cross is different, every human being is different and only you can carry the cross given to you. His grace will be enough and even when it seems hopeless and impossible it isn't if you surrender to God and truly trust Him.
3. to follow Him: may our will be to do His will.

Here I am Lord. Ready to do as you wish. Knowing I am truly incapable of anything great, but if you will it I will try.

I have the blessing to live with other beautiful women who have surrendered a year of their lives to the Lord. I want to introduce one in particular today. Her name is Hollyn a.k.a Ballin' Hollyn.

Hollyn is full of joy and peace. She brings a sense of comfort to our home. That big joyful smile is contagious and real. I was telling her how much I loved that I could just BE with her in silence and its not uncomfortable, but actually really freeing because she just is who she is. Her response was, " I am not good at making up stories, so this is who I am." She is pretty neat and just wanted to share that with you all instead of just me and abby knowin' it ;)

 I must also admit that in a previous blog post I actually forgot to include Hollyn's name as a member of our household so this is my way of making up for that.
 Love you, Ballin' Hollyn.

Please continue to pray for us as we strive to surrender to the Lords love, so that in turn we may better radiate that love to each other and those we serve.