God Is There All the Time
God Is There All the Time
Wednesday of the Fourth Week of Lent – March 25, 2020
Sometimes events in the outer world press us to grow in ways that we had not anticipated. The current coronavirus pandemic is one example, it seems to me. Our outer circumstances are forcing us to make adjustments we likely would not have made in “normal life.” Sometimes, our ongoing transformation depends on circumstances that more or less push us into some kind of life-change.
Continual conversion does not just happen to us. We hold onto things to which we have grown accustomed. We hesitate to let go of that which is comfortable. Surrender and detachment can be painful, even costly. We are pressed into shifting our life-stance.
We have to be reminded moment by moment that our ongoing conversion is moving toward some larger end. God is making us the people we were created to be. We are being shaped according to the purpose for which we were originally created.
So God comes to us in this work. God accompanies us, assists us, stands with us. We do not walk this path alone.
Esther de Waal continues her observations on this ongoing conversion in the excerpt below.
This can be costly. I think that most of the time I like what I know and what I feel safe with. I am frightened by the unknown and the demands that it will make upon me. Change does not come at the time that I might expect it or welcome it. It sometimes seems as though it is going to mean the breaking down of all that I had so carefully built up. But it is just then that God is telling me something that I need to hear. He is telling me that I had been building myself idols, without noticing it, and that however good they were I was still clinging to them. It might be family life with small children, a well-loved house, a familiar job, all very good in themselves. But now I may be being told to let go of them, and so be free for something else, the next step forward. And as I let go of these I find instead that in the last resort there is one reality only, and one dependence only, and that is God himself. The God who walks beside me just as he did on the road to Emmaus with those disciples who failed to recognize him, the God who is holding out his arms to me, ready to hold me up when I might otherwise fall. God is there, in the facts. If change teaches me anything at all it is this – that God is there all the time, the Christ to whom St. Benedict is pointing me, who stands with hands held out, and with the marks of the wounds that do not go away. Those scars remain as signs of love; they are promises of freedom and new life. That remains the miracle. If stability tells me of the certainty of God, conversatio tells me of the unpredictability of God – and both have a role to play in my journey to him.
[Esther de Waal, Living with Contradiction: An Introduction to Benedictine Spirituality (Harrisburg, PA: Morehouse Publishing, 1989), 1997.]
For Reflection:
o What the Benedictines call “continual conversion” is simply the awareness that God is always using all things to make us whole. Even difficult circumstance and challenging events are useful as God shapes our lives, according to the original design for which we were created.
o I think of a time in my life when I didn’t know what the future held. I may have been frightened by what was ahead of me, but I stepped into the uncertainty anyway.
o Now I think of something about my future that feels uncertain right now . . . in light of this pandemic, that may be a job, my health, a relationship, or a life-transition. I bring that situation into my prayer as openly as I can. Perhaps I tell God what I want in this situation, but mostly I want to be open to whatever God brings to me, whether it is my wish or not.
Wednesday of the Fourth Week of Lent – March 25, 2020
Sometimes events in the outer world press us to grow in ways that we had not anticipated. The current coronavirus pandemic is one example, it seems to me. Our outer circumstances are forcing us to make adjustments we likely would not have made in “normal life.” Sometimes, our ongoing transformation depends on circumstances that more or less push us into some kind of life-change.
Continual conversion does not just happen to us. We hold onto things to which we have grown accustomed. We hesitate to let go of that which is comfortable. Surrender and detachment can be painful, even costly. We are pressed into shifting our life-stance.
We have to be reminded moment by moment that our ongoing conversion is moving toward some larger end. God is making us the people we were created to be. We are being shaped according to the purpose for which we were originally created.
So God comes to us in this work. God accompanies us, assists us, stands with us. We do not walk this path alone.
Esther de Waal continues her observations on this ongoing conversion in the excerpt below.
This can be costly. I think that most of the time I like what I know and what I feel safe with. I am frightened by the unknown and the demands that it will make upon me. Change does not come at the time that I might expect it or welcome it. It sometimes seems as though it is going to mean the breaking down of all that I had so carefully built up. But it is just then that God is telling me something that I need to hear. He is telling me that I had been building myself idols, without noticing it, and that however good they were I was still clinging to them. It might be family life with small children, a well-loved house, a familiar job, all very good in themselves. But now I may be being told to let go of them, and so be free for something else, the next step forward. And as I let go of these I find instead that in the last resort there is one reality only, and one dependence only, and that is God himself. The God who walks beside me just as he did on the road to Emmaus with those disciples who failed to recognize him, the God who is holding out his arms to me, ready to hold me up when I might otherwise fall. God is there, in the facts. If change teaches me anything at all it is this – that God is there all the time, the Christ to whom St. Benedict is pointing me, who stands with hands held out, and with the marks of the wounds that do not go away. Those scars remain as signs of love; they are promises of freedom and new life. That remains the miracle. If stability tells me of the certainty of God, conversatio tells me of the unpredictability of God – and both have a role to play in my journey to him.
[Esther de Waal, Living with Contradiction: An Introduction to Benedictine Spirituality (Harrisburg, PA: Morehouse Publishing, 1989), 1997.]
For Reflection:
o What the Benedictines call “continual conversion” is simply the awareness that God is always using all things to make us whole. Even difficult circumstance and challenging events are useful as God shapes our lives, according to the original design for which we were created.
o I think of a time in my life when I didn’t know what the future held. I may have been frightened by what was ahead of me, but I stepped into the uncertainty anyway.
o Now I think of something about my future that feels uncertain right now . . . in light of this pandemic, that may be a job, my health, a relationship, or a life-transition. I bring that situation into my prayer as openly as I can. Perhaps I tell God what I want in this situation, but mostly I want to be open to whatever God brings to me, whether it is my wish or not.
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