Living in the Truth

My first couple of blogs have been about experiencing God's grace, truth and presence on a deeply personal, daily basis. But of course, as sinful human beings, living in a fallen world, with an enemy that wants to deceive us, the truth is not always clear. We sometimes seem to live in the midst of shame and fear and pride instead of the richness of God's grace, love and mercy. How can we make the shift from lies to truth, from shame to acceptance, from fear, anger, and pain to hope, peace and joy?

I believe the first step is to know that the truth is the truth no matter what I am experiencing or feeling. In other words, I am infinitely, passionately,  unconditionally, personally loved, whether I feel it or not and whether it is reflected in my circumstances or not. You see, we are not accustomed to unconditional love and so we look to feelings and circumstances to tell us whether we are loved or not. What happens when I don't feel God's love? Is his love changed? If God really loved me, wouldn't my bills be paid, my children behave or wouldn't I be healed by now?

So our emotions cannot reliably tell us the truth, and yet we are emotional beings. We experience life and relationships through emotions. There is nothing wrong with this; it is how God made us. I think the problem is that when I experience pain, shame, anger and discouragement, the feelings separate me from God. It is almost as though the truth of his love and grace are irrelevant if I am struggling. I don't feel loved when I am in pain. My faith seems disconnected from my reality. How does the truth of God's love and grace, the truth of my eternal life and salvation, matter when I can't pay my bills or I have to watch my father slowly slip into dementia? Sometimes I just get overwhelmed with "reality".

So what do I do? Asking this question reminds me of Paul's question at the end of Romans 7, verse 24; "Wretched man that I am! Who will set me free from this body of death?" Paul then goes on to answer the question in the next verse: "Thanks be to God through Jesus Christ our Lord!" And then throughout chapter eight he affirms the incredible truths that God has adopted us (vs 15), is able to work all things for our good (vs 28), that he will freely give us all things (vs 32), and that nothing can separate us from his love (vs 39). But how do I get from my present negative emotional state to the place of trusting these great truths? Is it a matter of working up some faith? Denying what I am feeling? I have often heard "faith" taught this way, but it does not work.

I believe the key is to let our emotions and circumstances drive us to God instead of away from him. This is hard work and is contrary to our natural inclination to avoid pain. It is easier to ignore painful feelings, distract ourselves from them with frantic activity or mind numbing screen time, or to medicate them away with addictions. But they don't just disappear; they lie in wait, returning again as soon as our distractions fail. What is the alternative? Being willing to feel the pain. Blessed Chiara Badano expresses a profound truth when she says, "Embraced pain makes one free."

To experience the truth in our daily lives we must first be willing to be honest with ourselves emotionally. The truth is I am in pain because I don't feel like anyone cares, the truth is I am angry because I am ashamed of myself, the truth is I feel like a failure as a parent, the truth is I feel abandoned, the truth is I am afraid I will experience great shame if anyone finds out what I am really like... What is the truth at the very bottom of how you feel? When we find this truth, we have something to bring to God. Now we can pour out the pain, grief, shame and fear to him. And hasn't that been the essence of man's relationship with God from the beginning? Read the Psalms! They are filled with the pouring out of the Psalmists' pains, frustrations and fears to God in complete and unreserved honesty. When we embrace our fears and pains and bring them to God, we really can experience freedom.

Listen to the words of the prophet, Habakkuk:

 I heard and my inward parts trembled,

At the sound my lips quivered.

Decay enters my bones,

And in my place I tremble.

Because I must wait quietly for the day of distress,

For the people to arise who will invade us.

 Though the fig tree should not blossom

And there be no fruit on the vines,

Though the yield of the olive should fail

And the fields produce no food,

Though the flock should be cut off from the fold

And there be no cattle in the stalls,

 Yet I will exult in the Lord,

I will rejoice in the God of my salvation.

 The Lord God is my strength,

And He has made my feet like hinds’ feet,

And makes me walk on my high places.

Hab. 3:16-19

Notice that he feels and expresses his emotions first, and then experiences the faith that lifts him above his circumstances.

The writer of Hebrews offers us this advice:

Therefore, since we have a great high priest who has passed through the heavens, Jesus the Son of God, let us hold fast our confession. For we do not have a high priest who cannot sympathize with our weaknesses, but One who has been tempted in all things as we are, yet without sin. Therefore let us draw near with confidence to the throne of grace, so that we may receive mercy and find grace to help in time of need. Hebrews 4:14-16

Our God has experienced humanity! He has experienced our emotions. He did not hide from them or deny them but embraced them and felt them to the depths: weeping over Jerusalem, crying at Lazarus' grave, sweating blood in Gethsemane, experiencing the shame of the cross. We can run to him with all of our deepest fears and pains and shames, and there we will find compassion. It is the way to freedom. It is the way of truth. It is the "narrow path" that leads to the peace and joy that is the Kingdom of God.

The Goal is to be with Him!

The whole point is to be united with God and to share his very life.

The whole point of creation, the reason we, as humans, even exist is because "God, infinitely perfect and blessed in Himself, in a plan of sheer goodness, created man to make him share in His own blessed life." (Catechism of the Catholic Church, Paragraph 1). And the whole point of why I exist is because he loved me into existence and desires a relationship me, in my completely unique me-ness. He did not create me to do something or accomplish something, he created me so he could be with me and share himself with me. He wants to share his life with me, his experience, joy, and essence, and to share in my life as well.

Which brings us to the whole point of the Paschal Mystery. Christ died so that we could be saved from our sin and reunited with the Father in love and fellowship. He died for the sake of relationship. He did not die so that I could do something or accomplish something. Even all the good things we know he would have us to do. They are not the goal; Being with Him, in relationship with Him, sharing of our lives is the goal.

This is probably obvious to everyone but it is a profound revelation for me. You see I always thought God wanted me to do something, preach the gospel, have a prayer life, feed the poor, help people, if you start the list of "works" you will never finish it.

Then I thought that God wanted be something: be a good father and husband, be a witness for Him, be a saint, be holy! And so I set to work on all those things. Good fathers spend time with their kids, good husbands listen to their wives, good witnesses learn their faith, saints pray, and the holy ones don't sin. Wow, did I have a lot of work to do! So I tried and tried, tried to be pleasing to Him, tried to have "faith", tried to be faithful. Sometimes I actually succeeded for a while, but then I had to repent for being proud! And, of course I also fell short. I failed.

The hardest part were the scriptures about love, and peace and joy. Those are hard to "work" on. I can act more loving, and can even be self sacrificing sometimes but I knew it was not the heartfelt, passionate love from the heart that God was looking for. Every once and a while I would experience supernatural peace in difficult times but my daily life was one of worry and anxiety; What are people going to think? How are we going to pay the bills? What happens if....?   And Joy? The best I could do is try to have a positive attitude and I wasn't very good at that either!

Then I came to the inevitable conclusion: I must be such a disappointment to the Father. I think in my heart of hearts, this is what I have always felt. I could not do what he wanted or be what he wanted.

But he really wasn't looking for me to do anything. And he wasn't looking for me to be anything either, except he did want me to be me and he wanted me to let him love me. "Its not that we love him but that he first loved us..." " He loved me and gave himself for me." For me? He didn't give it for what I can do? For who I might become? He gave himself for me. He loves me. Really, truly and passionately.

So if the whole goal of creation and the whole goal of the Paschal Mystery is for me to be united with God in relationship, then I am to be united with Love Itself. When I trust that Love, let that Love in, surrender to that Love, even when I am angry or in pain or am so aware of my sin and shame, I am transformed! He loves me!

I don't have to try to be peaceful, his love for me is real, he is really going to take care of me, provide for me, sustain me and work ALL things for my good!

I don't have to try to have joy, when I am united with the Fullness and Completeness of  Love, even my grief is transformed to joy. (I never understood those scriptures!)

I don't have to try to be a saint. I used to think that saints worked hard at being saints but I think that what they really worked hard at is being with Jesus and letting him love them. I thought that all that time they spent in prayer must have been so tedious and self sacrificing but I think now that they were experiencing his presence and the time was so sweet that they didn't want to leave. I thought they must have tried really hard to be loving but when you are loved, to the very core of your being, than love is the natural overflow of your heart.

I don't have to try to be a saint. What I have to do, is let him love me. Today. In the midst of my crazy life, in spite of my sin and shame and even my self loathing; I have to let him love me. With all of my fears and insecurities and doubts; I long for his love to be so real that they are chased away. Today as I am driving and working and eating and talking and planning, Love is going to be with me. If I can be with him, aware of him, constantly turning my heart towards him, what a wonderful day it will be. I will have peace and joy. I will be loved. I will have arrived at the goal of all of creation and the Pascal Mystery: I will be with Him!