Following God step-by-step

[CRATUS]

First thing is first for me confession. Next, is praying. How can I slowly follow God? I am little intimidated by my own sins and parts of the bible that state “deny yourself.” I just wonder where can I should I begin? I am afraid of failure.

 

[Mystical_Seeker]

One interpretation I like is the “self” you are denying, is the “false self” whose power has to be destroyed in order to progress beyond worldly needs and wants, to complete serenity and production of “fruit of the spirit.” (Gal 5:22-23)

This “false self” is the self-image we are given by our caretakers, authority figures, and cultural forces in general. By the time we are 7, we “need” and “expect” from others and ourselves, certain behavior and outcomes. We “need” a job. We “expect” better behavior from ourselves and others. We “deplore” the condition of this, that, or the other, or the world in general. We judge and we judge and we judge. We like this, we don’t like that. If we like this and others say we don’t we better be able to justify it or fight and be controversial.

The “true self,” by contrast, is that part of us that was born in the image of God. This is the “seed of the divine” that comes alive and becomes a spring from within, of living water in the Holy Spirit – if we can only get our false selves out of the way because the false self does not know the true self; hence it does not know the divine. And if we only see God as some distant entity that is watching and judging, that really doesn’t do us any good because we will always fail to look where His codes of love are written – on our own hearts. We are told what is right and wrong, and even if our hearts agree they end up trying to satisfy the construct and the opinions of others so our heart never really gets a vote on whether we are even going the right direction, when the “false self” dominated by what I call “head knowledge” which leads to arrogance – not necessarily boastful arrogance but the arrogance that we can figure out things that are intrinsically mysteries, such as the awesomeness of God’s mercy. We give it formulas because we want to “feel secure” in that we are being righteous at any given time. We judge ourselves by human standards we have bought into, which do not bring us to the Lord.

I’ve heard it described as three “false self energy centers” of power/control, security/comfort, and affection/esteem. We need a certain amount of these things to reasonably survive, but the inordinate desires for these things keep us firmly planted in the human world and isolated from significant influence from the Divine within us, the guide we are supposed to be going by because Jesus said He is going away but leaving the Holy Spirit. Commentary: considering the Holy Spirit is the living guide to all things that Jesus left us, you’d think we’d talk more about Him than we do, as Catholics.

Here is what one writer had to say about how the false self energy centers and how they related to the actions of Jesus in the desert. I lost the source but still have the text:

Christ has been in the wilderness fasting for forty days. He was famished. The tempter offers Jesus a quick shortcut to meet his security needs for food – turn the stones into loaves of bread.

The tempter next offers Jesus a dramatic act guaranteed to raise esteem for him as he begins his public ministry. From the pinnacle of the temple, the most visible sight in Jerusalem, Jesus can throw himself to the ground safely, for the angels love him so much they will protect him (the devil quotes scripture to prove it).

Finally the tempter offers Jesus the power and splendor of all the kingdoms.

Jesus turns away from each of the false offers. Instead, Jesus embraces God the Father as his source of perfect security, perfect love, and perfect power. Accepting security, esteem and power as a gift rather than trying to achieve them on our own is a fundamental exercise of faith.

Our needs are so exquisite, and their fulfilling is so tempting, that it is hard to resist the notion that we can reach out and achieve them for ourselves. It takes trust and discipline to dismantle our addiction and attachment to the ways we try to satisfy our exaggerated needs. For most of our lives, it is the first order of business of the spiritual life to turn away from these compulsions.

So yes, living a good life and seeking to do righteous deeds is important, but it’s not enough to “be perfect” like Jesus told the Rich Man. I don’t see that “rich” is necessarily a sin in itself, but the reason the “rich” have such a hard time getting into the kingdom is that they almost invariably learn to rely on their ability to use worldly power rather than rely on God with very few exceptions. Only when their world collapses, are some of them forced to consider that the world does not promise us a future, while God does if we learn to accept His teachings while we are here in it.

(continued…)

 

[Mystical_Seeker]

(…continued)

Another version of “the formula” is in three gospels; here is an account from Luke:

Luke 18:18-23
18 An official asked him this question, “Good teacher, what must I do to inherit eternal life?” 19 Jesus answered him, “Why do you call me good? No one is good but God alone. 20 You know the commandments, ‘You shall not commit adultery; you shall not kill; you shall not steal; you shall not bear false witness; honor your father and your mother.’” 21 And he replied, “All of these I have observed from my youth.” 22 [e]When Jesus heard this he said to him, “There is still one thing left for you: sell all that you have and distribute it to the poor, and you will have a treasure in heaven. Then come, follow me.” 23 But when he heard this he became quite sad, for he was very rich.

My guess is this man knew some of the troubling things in his own heart, and somehow realized that simply following the commandments has not brought him to God in any way he can figure out … and it probably doesn’t make sense to him. That would be my guess as to why he was asking in the first place, for some guidance beyond the commandments.

When Jesus mentioned the notion of the man losing all his possessions (which represent comfort and even “confidence for the future” to his false self energy centers) it didn’t compute because this rich man had in fact learned to turn toward human methods. So taking away the possessions took away his power in the world, but would give him the challenge and situation where he would need and desire to seek a faith that persists even when it isn’t backed up by these worldly comforts.

The world give us “comfort” from time to time, which of course is limited to those times and conditions which we judge as “comfortable.” But Jesus gives us true peace, which gives us faith and confidence to live in this world even when the world environment is not supplying the needs of the false self. His peace takes us through times of comfort and trials, both. And trials produce perseverance, and perseverance faith.

And with that, we see James 2-4:
2 Consider it all joy, my brothers, when you encounter various trials, 3 for you know that the testing of your faith produces perseverance. 4 And let perseverance be perfect, so that you may be perfect and complete, lacking in nothing.

So we need trials in order to become perfect. If we have too much worldly power and control etc because we are wealthy and influential, we never see the kind of trial that allows us to “surrender” our plans and thoughts to God (or at least the situation) and learn to go with it and ultimately continue to produce fruit of the spirit.

Gal 5:22
In contrast, the fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, generosity, faithfulness, 23 gentleness, self-control. Against such there is no law.

Notice that producing these fruit does not require any money or worldly power.

But if our false self energy centers are out of control they can try to drown us in anxiety and prevent these fruit from growing, which in turns keeps us from dealing well with the situation and spirals toward despair when our mind runs out of options in which to place its hope.

Continuing with Luke 18:24-30
On Riches and Renunciation. 24 Jesus looked at him [now sad] and said, “How hard it is for those who have wealth to enter the kingdom of God! 25 For it is easier for a camel to pass through the eye of a needle than for a rich person to enter the kingdom of God.” 26 Those who heard this said, “Then who can be saved?” 27 And he said, “What is impossible for human beings is possible for God.” 28 Then Peter said, “We have given up our possessions and followed you.” 29 He said to them, “Amen, I say to you, there is no one who has given up house or wife or brothers or parents or children for the sake of the kingdom of God 30 who will not receive [back] an overabundant return in this present age and eternal life in the age to come.”

I hope this is useful.

MS

 

[St_Francis]

First thing is first for me confession. Next, is praying. How can I slowly follow God? I am little intimidated by my own sins and parts of the bible that state “deny yourself.” I just wonder where can I should I begin? I am afraid of failure.

Add things on one at a time, and switch them around instead of adding all the time.

So, first make sure you say morning and evening prayers.

Then add the Rosary sometimes during the day–shoor for saying this at the same time each day.

Then add some Scripture reading, etc.

(The above is just an example. IE if you already read teh Bible each day, keep doing that and add in the other things.)

It may be that you notice the feat day of you patron saint is coming up, so you decide to pray a novena to him or her. After you finish the novena, you might see another prayer that you like so you pray it for a while. Then it might be Lent, and you decide to pray the Litany of the Sacred Heart instead. So, some things you add, and some you switch.

 

[St_Francis]

First thing is first for me confession. Next, is praying. How can I slowly follow God? I am little intimidated by my own sins and parts of the bible that state “deny yourself.” I just wonder where can I should I begin? I am afraid of failure.

As to mortifications, you want to eliminate your sins. Pick one, the worst one, and “practice” the opposite virtue. Say your worst sin is gluttony. You would set up small mortifications to get your body (which I call mine the spoiled brat ). You tell yourself you will eat this much at these times, and you won’t eat at other times. Gradually. So I first started with no eating between meals and snacks (having small children around can cause a parent to get in the habit of eating super-often!). Then when you are good at that, add in no seconds at meals, eliminate some snacks, that sort if thing one at a time.

Each time you struggle with a mortification, *offer it up! *Don’t let that suffering go to waste! And I forgot that you should be praying for God’s help in this. Dear God, help me not to eat between meals today.

When Lent comes, you may decide to eat no sweets, but then after Lent, you may decide to eat nothing between 3 and 4 instead. Switching some mortifications instead of always adding will keep you from feeling overwhelmed.

I will try to link to a sermon MP3 that has more good advice in this area

 

[Mystical_Seeker]

Regarding being afraid of failure, that could be a real key here.

Part of denying yourself means, I would think, that failures will happen from time to time.

People seem to have a view that failure not only hurts, it means you’re not making progress. I don’t know how that came to be but I think it has something to do with how we punish people for their mistakes and give them bad grades and thoughts that follow them around and haunt them even after they quit making that mistake forever.

Failure is not the alternative to success; it is a step toward it. If you are afraid your child will fall down, you will not let it learn to walk. Falling down is part of the calibration and training of the body to do something it’s never done before.

Fear of failure impedes progress, but accepting that the Lord will be with us even if we fail, gives us courage to continue to try.

Remember that so far we all have 100% track record at living through everything that’s ever been thrown at us.

 

[St_Francis]

Link to sermon
Here is the link to the sermon I mentioned earlier. He esp focuses on impatience and anger (iirc). The sermon is about 20-25 minutes long. What I did was to listen to it a few times, and my next step will be to listen to it and take notes.

They have a wonderful archive of years’ worth of sermons by 3 or 4 priests; it’s a treasure trove of knowledge!

 

[St_Francis]

A link to Spiritual Combat
This is a wonderful book by Dom Scupoli, with an audio version on CCEL. The first few chapters directly address things like failure, so I think it will be very heartening and informative for you to read It has helped me a lot with some of the same issues. Cery good stuff on relying on God rather than ourselves <<<this is what God wants!!! and also on picking ourselves up when we fail.

 

[CRATUS]

Regarding being afraid of failure, that could be a real key here.

Part of denying yourself means, I would think, that failures will happen from time to time.

People seem to have a view that failure not only hurts, it means you’re not making progress. I don’t know how that came to be but I think it has something to do with how we punish people for their mistakes and give them bad grades and thoughts that follow them around and haunt them even after they quit making that mistake forever.

Failure is not the alternative to success; it is a step toward it. If you are afraid your child will fall down, you will not let it learn to walk. Falling down is part of the calibration and training of the body to do something it’s never done before.

Fear of failure impedes progress, but accepting that the Lord will be with us even if we fail, gives us courage to continue to try.

Remember that so far we all have 100% track record at living through everything that’s ever been thrown at us.

I appreciate your responses. I will read that all when I have time.