For as long as I can remember, I have wanted to be rich, to be famous, and to own a big house with lots of land and many beautiful things. It's a vision that is quite worldly, and tends to be at odds with my Christian faith. Over the past two weeks, these worldly desires have tugged harder at me than they usually do and I found myself distracted by them to the point where I allowed myself to fall into a big sin. I repented of that sin almost immediately, and God helped me to fix the problem I had created through my sin, but it occurred to me that I needed to change in a big way if I were to avoid the temptation to sin again.
Today, I decided to change the way I pray. I usually include in my prayers requests for certain sums of money to take care of whatever problems I am facing, even though I know that I am terrible with money. This has been a habit of mine for forever, but I decided to change that habit starting today. Beginning today, I decided, I will pray for a greater fear of the Lord. I will pray with all my might that God would teach me to be content with what I have, to no longer hunger after money or fame or worldly goods but instead to hunger after a greater union with Him.
As I sat there writing, I realized that if I can embrace poverty, humility, and simplicity I will find the joy, peace, and contentment I desire. If I am poor but I have God, then I have wealth beyond measure. If I am unknown by others but known completely by God then I am known better than all other men or women. If I have nothing except God, I have everything that matters. I realized that if I poured even a tenth of the time and effort into growing my relationship with God that I have put into pursuing money, I would be much closer to my stated goal of sainthood than I am at present.
Those of you who read my blog, I just ask you to pray for me. Help me to grow in my new path and to put aside the old, to stay firm and stand strong in my chosen path. Old habits are hard to break sometimes, and I may fall many times before I am strong enough to move forward without stumbling. However, this time at least I know that I have chosen a worthy path to pursue. I have chosen to pursue Him.
Subscribe to:
Post Comments (Atom)
Popular Posts
-
Trump won. There are a great many people celebrating this as an obvious victory for pro-life Christianity and little people everywhere. I... -
Heather Von St. James is a 10 year Mesothelioma survivor. Mesothelioma is extremely aggressive and has a long latency period. It usual... -
For you to be able to speak to your audience in a way that makes sense to them, you need to enter their world. You need to put yourself i... -
In yesterday's post on selling God , I explained that your mess would help you identify the audience that your message would appea... -
Imagine for a moment that you went to a friend’s house. They were very excited because they’d just started a new business. When you ask... -
Dear Hallee, I heard about your birthday party , and my heart broke for you. I'm 40 years old. Twenty five years ago, like you, I h... -
Mass means mission. It’s our mission, given to us by Love, to take the hope we’ve received and pass it along to others. Attending Mass is... -
It's been a month and 5 days since I last wrote about Hope and the Sacrament of Baptism . When it came to writing about the Sacram... -
I mentioned, in my last blog post, that God is a tough sell . There are a lot of obstacles you’ll have to face before you are going to be... -
This blog post is almost six months overdue. That’s because five months and 19 days ago is when God made clear to me what He wanted me ...
