Imperfect Relation with God

[Flavius_Aetius]

I’m a sixteen year old male who would appriecate any advice from people who have had this problem or just wish to offer advice. Anyways I feel that my connection with God is not a perfect loving one.

For one is the fact that if I fail to go to confession; the next day I find any excuse not to go to mass. To add to that; every time I go to Confession I am certain with myself that I am confessing for my own selfish salvation, instead of from knowing of God’s love.

Anything would be good to know. To add to this I feel like that Secular Science that are in my opinion determined to disprove God are battering my relations with God. I’ve never thought that any part of the trinity didn’t exist, which is the only good point I can say of myself.

 

[teachccd]

I’m a sixteen year old male who would appriecate any advice from people who have had this problem or just wish to offer advice. Anyways I feel that my connection with God is not a perfect loving one.

For one is the fact that if I fail to go to confession; the next day I find any excuse not to go to mass. To add to that; every time I go to Confession I am certain with myself that I am confessing for my own selfish salvation, instead of from knowing of God’s love.

Anything would be good to know. To add to this I feel like that Secular Science that are in my opinion determined to disprove God are battering my relations with God. I’ve never thought that any part of the trinity didn’t exist, which is the only good point I can say of myself.

I don’t really know of many who have a perfect relationship with God. To do so would mean that one would never sin. Anytime someone sins the are either weakening or severing their relationship with God and most of us do that everyday. That being said, whenever one goes to confession they merely need to recognize their sinfulness and be sorry for their sins. What you are describing is called imperfect contrition and that is enough for the sacrament of reconciliation. Hopefully as you move along in your journey you will see the need to know God’s love and long for that. But for now you need to take it slowly.

Secular science, as you describe it, is only discovering what God has known from all eternity. Many scientists claim to be atheists simply because they feel that everything has a scientific explanation and that there is no “need” for a God. Well they are dead wrong. There is no “need” for our recognition of beauty and yet we do so all of the time. And that is because we long for the infinite beauty of God. So you just let science do its thing and you continue to seek the God who sent you on this forum. And there are many good things that you can say about yourself. I’m not so sure when I was sixteen years old that I would have had the courage or the maturity that you have in acknowledging my doubts and seeking the help that you are.

You keep up the good work. God loves you very much and you are doing just fine. Don’t skip Mass when you miss confession. Just go and pray and God will take it from there. He loves you so much that He sent His only Son to die for you. You mean the world to Him and from all eternity He knew that you would ask this question and that many would help you as best we can…God Bless you and you are in my prayers…teachccd

 

[Caesar517]

I applaud you for seing your flaws and working to correct them. When I was 16 I had fallen into complacency and habitual mortal sin.
Since then, my faith has grown in ways that I could not have imagined. The best advise I can give is lots and lots of prayer. Say the rosary daily, if you aren’t already. That really helped me.

 

[Flavius_Aetius]

I really apprieciate the comments made; it helps to be reminded that we has Human’s aren’t perfect which is why we were given Confession. Well I may have missed this week, but now I’m determined to follow a better path and go to confession next week.

I thank you both and any others who may leave a comment. I truly love this gift of a forum.

 

[Kathrin]

God loves us with all our imperfections.

Is wanting to be reconciled with God selfish?

A lot of things may seem selfish in some way but not selfish in others. maybe one “secret” here is that the self and the other are not as far apart as we sometimes think?
Because God is in us, around us, everywhere… and we are all connected… and self-love and love for God and love for other are not all that different… i don’t know, just writing down my musings here, which have been isnpird by things I have read, things I have felt, etc…

Kathrin

 

[Trishie]

Maybe you might find comfort in reading two recent threads concerning the imperfections and realities in the life of St Therese of Lisieux in the Spirituality section. Therese and her sisters (Celine and Leonie) recognise their limitations and faults but their confidence is in God’s mercy. Nah, you’re not so bad!
I get creative with my weaknesses, e.g.

Selfishness, as a measure of giving

My selfishness and personal consciousness gives me a great gift. With its desires and attachments, it teaches me how much caring and blessing I should desire for others. I desire all good, no less for ANY person than the most that God’s love can give anyone.

My life, prayer, Masses and all my Communions are equally, totally, given to and shared with each of my family, with each soul in Purgatory, and with EVERY person however unknown or “unworthy” from all ages, races or religions. For each, I desire all blessing. To each I give ALL that God gives to me.

**
Wisdom of true conversion**
God, I know that Your love can free me from the self-imposed need to force my inclination and emotions into a pattern of love and virtue. Give me grace to strive faithfully, while trusting my efforts into Your care, allowing You to love me and to love others through me.

I do not seek to be ‘virtuous’ or ‘exemplary’. I seek to be to be Your living tabernacle. Let me not be ‘candle’, but part of Your light that dispels all darkness. Let me not be ‘wise’, but absorbed into Your wisdom and truth. Let me not be ‘peaceful’ or ‘trusting’, but resting faithfully in Your peace and joy. Let me not be ‘productive of good works’, rather, let me be responsive to every facet of Your love for me and for others, as vehicle of Your goodness for them.

I ask this true conversion of You, for “*At night my soul longs for You and my spirit in me seeks for You.” *[Isaiah 26:9]

In my weakness You are strength

Jesus, thank You for those who see my faults or misunderstand my motives and who thus reveal my need for conversion and healing. I repent my unworthiness, and ask that You offer me as gift to God in each broken moment restored.

Gather up my lost moments, Jesus! Cleanse and shape them with my sorrow merged with Your sacrifice. Burnish and set them with Your forgiveness, and illuminate them with Your love as treasures of witness, intercession, and atonement! Thus, make my flawed life into a gem of praise, service and delight for You in the Communion of Saints.

Praise to You, Jesus, who make treasure out of ordinary and fallen human beings!

*“I live in a high and holy place, but I am also with the contrite and humbled spirit, to give the humble new life…I will heal and console him.” says the Lord God.” *[Isaiah 57:15, 18]
“In my ‘little way every thing is most ordinary; all that I do, little souls must be able to do likewise. (Saint Therese of Lisieux) Her little way “is the way of Spiritual childhood…of trust and absolute self-surrender.”

And dear brother, if your motives are selfish in Confession…no surprise…it’s human, it’s real, and God knows us for who and what we actually are.
And doubt of God. Been there, done that, all the intellectual stuff, for ten years. God put up with that until one morning, on the feast of the Sacred Heart, He yanked me back so fast I was in Confession by the afternoon.

May God bless you so very much. Trishie

 

[Trishie]

Brother, I actually have an endless supply of such and varied prayers that document my struggles to love God, and others, and to intercede for them. What I mean is, we don’t and can’t expect to be perfect in our love. We’re searching, we’re humble, but happy to be real human beings.

Harvest
Beloved Jesus—from the compost of my sins, failures, faults and omissions please enrich the soil that nurtures the harvest that You prepare of my being and life—for Your delight, and for others’ benefit.
From the flower and fruit of all grace and good sprung from You within me, please bountifully glorify Yourself and bless all whose lives touch mine!

*“Upon every person God loves, in order to bring them to God’s bliss, God imposes something that is not a defect in God’s sight, but is a reason why they are humbled and despised in this world, scorned, mocked and cast out. This God does to prevent the harm they would suffer from the pretence and vanities of this wretched life, to make ready their way to heaven and to the state of eternal happiness. For God says, ‘I shall tear you away from your vain affections and vicious pride. Then I shall gather you, and make you meek and mild, pure and holy by uniting you to Me’.” *(Revelations to Julian of Norwich)

 

[Trishie]

I’m sorry for belabouring the point, and the stuff I copy from my journal may bore you. But I just hope it makes some stepping stones to your perception of yourself in relation to God. I care, because one day in heaven I’ll meet you as a beloved brother. And I care because when I was your age, no one answered my questions regarding faith, except to say, “you just have to have faith.” To my questioning mind, that wasn’t helpful. And when I failed “to be good” I was so desperately unhappy. I had to learn a lot. So in all the words, sorry, but maybe there will be something that helps, Trishie.

Seeking true self
I believe, our God! Please increase my faith and deepen my trust that You respond to our prayers and needs. Prayer is gift of divine love that creates and holds each person in awareness and life. Hear my prayer for others and grant that I creatively conform to Your utterance, Your thought, Your image in me, so that nothing mars Your creation in me, and so that Your fulfilled expression of love and glory in me delights You eternally.

Spare me from the corrupting error of thinking myself virtuous and of feeling self-satisfied regarding presumed progress. Let me welcome the knowledge of my fallible humanity as reminder of my dependence upon You for any good. For then You shall gladly accept, in each tiny moment, the humble invitation that my soul offers for Your goodness to possess me.

Let me trust in You alone, even where I find satisfaction in seemingly worthwhile achievement or prayer…especially then, lest it causes me to believe in my merit, rather than in the knowledge that I remain in Your presence only through Your gift!

God, may I attain such simplicity and trust, regardless of how unworthy my life appears. However, except where it impedes Your purpose, please allow me encouragement—but with recognition of this as Your mercy towards a child who still perceives as faint shadows, through faith, those eternal joys and awarenesses for which You shape and prepare me. Nevertheless mercifully remember my imperfections and do not leave me unprotected in temptation, because without You I am certain to be lost. Yet, where You require, please lead me into wholeness and true insight. Please hold me close and perfect my being swiftly.

Our God, dare I ask such things? I am unworthy and vulnerable. Yet I trust in your love, so please accept me, and possess me utterly, forever. Do not let me give up on myself regardless of how dispiriting my failure.

Never see me standing alone our God. Let Your prayer in me and in everyone who seeks to please You by our service, be also intercession for all other persons—for their true self to triumph and receive everlasting fulfilment in You…

Jesus in His humanity offered and gave everything for sake of each person, in humble, obedient sacrifice. The fruit of His love for each person has power to intimately embrace the souls of billions across the centuries. His tears and blood still flow in the Eucharistic life of His Church, and His words speak into each open heart. Were we, in following Him, truly to love, how totally and tenderly would we serve each other as gospel people, in self-forgetfulness, as He has done! Let it be so in my life, our God.

 

[Flavius_Aetius]

Once again I thank you for the information given; and I apreicative of everyone.