Daily Meditation - Wednesday 9April 2008 Easter Season - DONT SETTLE FOR ANYTHING LESS!

[BarbaraTherese]

Readings
usccb.org/nab/040908.shtml

Meditation
wau.org/meditations/meditations.asp?month=4&day=9&year=2008&x=11&y=4

John 6:35-40

What kept so many people who saw Jesus from believing in him? Was it their limited expectations about who he was and what he could do? They seemed ready enough to accept that he could multiply bread. But could he really give anyone who believed in him “eternal life” and “raise him on the last day” (6:40)? Maybe that was too much. Maybe their idea of Jesus—and of God—was too small to allow for anything so mind-boggling.

How easy it can be to box God into some narrow category that limits or distorts him!

• Some of us see him as the Great Schoolteacher, always examining our performance for flaws and grading it severely.
• Some of us, thinking back to childhood warnings that “God sees everything,” imagine a big, cold, unblinking, unmerciful Eye in the Sky.
• For others, calling God “Father” evokes the image of an overbearing, intolerant authority figure.

How much bigger and better than ***our deficient thoughts ***

God really is!
He is a Father of endless mercy who not only intends but desires to welcome as many sons and daughters as possible to his banquet.

• Far from wanting to condemn you, he wants to make you like him and bring you to live with him forever.
• If the vastness of this plan makes you want to retreat into “safe” little ideas you can handle, don’t give in!
• Don’t settle for anything less than partaking of God’s divine nature.
• Sure, it’s more than you or anyone else can comprehend, but this really is the awesome destiny God desires for you.

Keep this in mind today, and see the difference it makes.

• God loves you so much that he offers you a share in the very mind and heart of Father, Son, and Holy Spirit.
• You are called to be a coheir with Christ, a sharer in God’s glory. With the Holy Spirit in you, your prayers can change the world—securing blessings for leaders, disrupting evil plots, reducing suffering, bringing healing.
• If you believe in Christ, why ever walk with your head hanging down?
• Just set aside every “small” idea, and move ahead with confidence in God and his loving, glorious plan.
  “Father, thank you for calling me to be with you for eternity
  and to know you even now!
  Increase my confidence in you,
  and help me to see you as you really are.”

 

[bwhite06517]

From the Gospel reading:

For this is the will of my Father, that everyone who sees the Son and believes in him may have eternal life, and I shall raise him on the last day

What is belief? How do we get belief (or faith)?

From Mark 9:23-24:

And Jesus said to him, " ‘If You can?’ All things are possible to him who believes." Immediately the boy’s father cried out and said, “I do believe; help my unbelief.”

From Romans 10:

Thus faith comes from what is heard, and what is heard comes through the word of Christ.

In “The Last Battle” (last book in the Narnia stories by C.S. Lewis), Lewis describes what happens when the Narnians are thrown through the ‘final door’. The Narnians see that they are in a paradise; but a group of dwarfs only see the inside of a hut. The Narnias try to tell the dwarfs about the beauty of the world they are in, but the dwarfs can only see the hut. They can not ‘believe’ that there is more to life.

We are limited in our belief. Our minds play tricks on us. If we ‘believe’ that we are going to have a bad day, it probably will happen; if we ‘believe’ that God is with us - He is. Believe can be a supernatural gift - or it can be ‘grown’. The Mark 9 verse (above) has the boy’s father saying “I do believe, help my unbelief”; the Romans 10 verse says “Faith come from hearing the word of Christ”. In the Mark verse, Jesus says All things are possible to him who believe

If we expect to grow in our faith (and belief), we need to ‘exercise’ it!!! We need to listen to the Gospel, we need to **hear **the word of God (at Mass and/or through reading the scriptures). II Timothy 3:16 says

“All scripture is inspired by God and is useful for teaching, for refutation, for correction, and for training in righteousness, so that one who belongs to God may be competent, equipped for every good work”

Ignorance of the Scriptures will result in incomplete knowing of our faith - and the inability to fully believe in Jesus Christ!!! Therefore, we need to study God’s Word - and receive God’s word. John 1:14 says:

And the Word became flesh and made his dwelling among us, and we saw his glory, the glory as of the Father’s only Son, full of grace and truth.

Therefore, receiving Jesus in the Eucharist is akin to receiving the “Word of God” - made flesh and dwelling among us.

Lord, open our eyes to your Word - both in Scripture and in the Eucharist!!!

 

[BarbaraTherese]

The moment I define what God is, I am putting boundaries or limits on Him. God may well be in my particular definition, but the reality is that He is far far more than any definition whatsoever…more than anything my imagination or understanding can settle on or present to me.

This is what struck me in today’s Gospel

“and I will not reject anyone who comes to me”

I can come to Jesus in Confession in all my brokenness and confusion, in my not understanding…I can come to Jesus in Confession in anything at all - and He is there waiting for me with endless and total Compassionate Mercy and Understanding…in His Pardon and in His Strength with Peace to go on. In Confession, Jesus not only forgives, He completely forgets. His forgiveness, unlike mine, is absolute and total…His Forgiveness transcends all my imaginary powers and my powers of understanding.