What you told me you especially liked about this retreat.
These are not listed in any particular order:

• The exercises
• The ability to do the retreat on your own schedule
• Having the material in multiple formats
• The ability to post, read, and respond to one another’s posts
• The emphasis on deeper relationship with God/Jesus
• My honest and personal approach

Your responses clearly indicated that you came with spiritual openness and expectation—or at least hopefulness—and these attitudes are key to the success of any retreat experience.

I recognize that many of you are in the midst of ministry, whether or not you see it as such. You are bringing up children, caring for elderly or sick family members, participating in your faith communities, creating home in the midst of unpredictable events, and holding down jobs while seeking the vocation to love others however you can. Since you are so busy with your everyday life, you told us that you appreciated that this retreat gave you the flexibility to choose when you participated.

Let me tell you what I especially liked about this retreat.
Again, these are not listed in any particular order:

• You were active participants—reading the materials and trying out the exercises for yourselves.
• You were honest—asking good questions and voicing your real concerns.
• You formed community, by reading one another’s posts and in some cases responding to one another directly.
• You did a stunning job of connecting the content to what was going on in your individual situations.
• You told wonderful stories—some of them quite moving and powerful.
• Your attitude was one of appreciation and gratitude—two things that always soften the heart so that the Holy Spirit can work.

The Journey Continues

It would be impossible to maintain an ongoing schedule such as the one we kept for the Lenten retreat. But here is what we plan to do in the near future:

• The emphasis will continue to be deepening our friendship with God.
• I will be posting a reflection and an exercise once a week, and about once a month we will provide a video. And you will still have the opportunity to post your comments.
• Sometimes I will present material directly; other times I might refer to another book or resource and occasionally we’ll have a guest author.

We will try all of this and see what happens. And then adjust our plans accordingly.

Thank you for being part of this online spiritual adventure! All peace and grace to you during these spring days,

Vinita

Note: You will need to subscribe again if you would like to continue to receive updates via email when new posts have been made. Simply click on the “Receive updates” button found at the right.

Related posts:

1. The Days of Deepening Friendship Lenten Retreat

So the long march from Palm Sunday through Maundy-Thursday, Good Friday, and Holy Saturday serves to walk me out of that introspective, heart-rending world. One Bible story at a time, one Scripture reading at a time, one prayer and response at a time, I made my way out of my Lenten cave. During our Easter Vigil, we went from individually held candles to full lighting in the sanctuary. Suddenly, color—Easter lilies and hyacinths and various other bright blooms stationed all about. Suddenly, sound—a trumpeter and choir, shouts of “Alleluia!” and hymns charged with glory and grandeur. Suddenly, me in a fancy blouse and shiny earrings, dressed bravely enough to be visible to all. Yes, I needed the pilgrimage of Holy Week to arrive at this bountiful moment.

It helps to have company for transformative events; the more witnesses the better, I think. This is why I still go to church; I really believe that Christianity is a communal faith and that my life shapes up better when I allow contact with other lives. I think of the women going to Jesus’ tomb that morning, making their way in the half-light, still afraid of the Romans and of some of their Jewish brothers, walking quickly in a cluster, hunched against the chill of the morning and the grief that was their whole existence at that point. Not only could a woman not travel alone safely, given the culture and the times, but these women needed one another’s company. For all they knew, the whole thing was over—Jesus of Nazareth was dead and buried, not the messiah they’d hoped for, not the one who would liberate them from oppression in the world. But regardless of the theology, Jesus had been their friend, had brought healing and forgiveness into their lives, and they would face the grim morning, the ruthless guards, the cold and brutalized body, just for love. But they had to do it together.

It was just as right that they encountered, together, the great surprise—that together they saw angels, spoke to gardeners, saw the bare slab upon which the body had rested. I certainly would want to behold a miracle with someone at my side, another person to affirm that, yes; this was real and not a hallucination. No, I wasn’t crazy from grief. I consider myself an honest person, but I don’t always trust myself to perceive clearly events that are immensely horrible or immensely wonderful. I know how easily my memory can garble what someone said. I know how quickly light or darkness can trick my eyes.

A person needs company when walking the road to Emmaus or when beholding a risen friend on the beach. Because although it’s tough to live Lent, to enter that dark and dangerous space and work out our honesty and our faith, I think it’s even tougher to live Easter. Easter is really too much to believe. It is news that’s too good; it is truth that’s too overwhelming. By myself I can’t maintain that kind of faith or that kind of life. It’s much easier to stay in Lent, to see myself as broken, unworthy, inconsistent, and imperfect. That’s not necessarily a happy way to be, but it’s much more familiar and for that reason much more comfortable than Easter living.

Easter living requires that I relinquish my vision of myself. I will always see how I am not good enough or enlightened enough or something enough. Or, I will see that I’m just fine the way I am, thank you, and I don’t need any kind of crazy, spiritual overhaul. It’s difficult to see what lies between those two extremes: a person made in God’s image who is constantly becoming more of who she truly is. A person in process and completely loved and accepted at every stage of that process.

Easter living requires that I hope rather than despair. I must live in the tension of seeing the world as it is and yet envisioning and working toward the world as it should be. Easter living will compel me to live out a worldview that values life, that forgives, and that can wait and watch as transformation does its work in myself and in others.

Easter living requires that I truly live my life. I enter it every day with purpose, knowing who I am and Whose I am. I expect grace at every turn, I look for Divine evidence everywhere. I act as if I am Divine Love in a given situation, doing as Jesus would do, as God is already doing, and as the Holy Spirit is moving me to do.

Easter living is usually at odds with how most of us live. We fear, we avoid, we resent, we regress, we react—because life is hard and we must brace ourselves. When we live Easter, we acknowledge that life is hard, but navigating its tangled paths is less about getting braced and more about receiving grace.

Do feel free to attempt this at home—live Easter wherever you are! But don’t attempt it alone. Find some company. It may be a church nearby that you visit from time to time. It may be a friend online with whom you can talk about this wild life of faith. It may be the memoir, poetry, film, or song that speaks to you and helps you know you are not alone. It may even be a saint or two, from ancient times or from your own family, a deceased yet present person who does care for you and your journey.

It was good that you dwelled in Lent, and did the work that needed to be done. But now . . . welcome to Easter! Grab it with your whole self, and don’t be ashamed to sing and shout. Alleluia!

Related posts:

1. Living Life—or Escaping It?

Our Easter exercise was focused on 1 Corinthians 13, commonly known as the love chapter of the Bible. We are reminded that love “is patient, love is kind. It is not jealous, is not pompous, it is not inflated, it is not rude, it does not seek its own interests, it is not quick-tempered, it does not brood over injury, it does not rejoice over wrongdoing but rejoices with the truth. It bears all things, believes all things, hopes all things, endures all things. Love never fails.”

Whenever I read that description of love, I am reminded of how often I do not love well. Of course I run out of patience, and sometimes I do brood over what someone has said about me or done to me. Of course love in my life will always be forming and growing. I have to acknowledge, also, that the years of friendship with God have developed my love—that is, I love better now than I used to. All the time I’m learning better what it means to be kind, to see jealousy for what it is and to reject it. I don’t enjoy some movies the way I would have years ago, because they follow the blockbuster formulas for revenge on one’s enemies, and revenge—even against horrible characters—just isn’t so attractive anymore. As a Christian I know I am called to a different way of thinking and proceeding.

As I have read each and every one of your posts during this online retreat, I have watched the steady unfolding of hope, prayer, creativity, and love. You have been courageously honest in your responses and questions. You have been tenacious in your belief that God’s love and grace will somehow pull together your various fragments and accomplish wholeness in your life. You have encouraged and comforted one another—and you have encouraged and comforted me. You have loved truly. Yes, you have. Not only is love patient, but love knows how to empathize with another’s pain—and you have done that. Not only does love bear all things, but love keeps talking to God while bearing what seems impossible. Love keeps the conversation going, even when there is disappointment, discouragement, and sometimes anger. You have kept the conversation going—within our online group and also in your individual situations.

Thank you for your sacred stories about children, husbands, friends, sisters and brothers, mothers and fathers. Thank you for taking on such huge words as “passion” and claiming them as your own. Thank you for daring to interpret your ordinary and often difficult lives through the phrases and images of faith.

Thank you for naming your fears and pains, for taking the time to journal, for entering the “room” with God and allowing God’s eyes to meet yours. Thank you for speaking your dreams out loud and for saying “yes” to Divine love and purpose.

You need to know this: You are a different person now from who you were weeks ago. Your soul has opened a bit more; you have gained some important spiritual vocabulary; you have had serious conversations with yourself and with God. You have prayed from the bottom of yourself, and you have made choices in response to faith, hope, and love.

It’s humbling to have been allowed into this Lenten conversation with you; I am aware now more than ever that the Holy Spirit is at work and that I have witnessed some of that from reading your posts. And I have experienced an important truth in the spiritual life: Living in friendship with God means that I live in friendship with God’s many friends. Thank you for your friendship—for offering me God’s friendship through your life!

Our conversation is not over. Many of you responded to a survey we sent out last week, and based upon those survey results, we will continue providing material on this website. We will e-mail you when something new is posted—but by all means check www.loyolapress.com periodically to see not only the online opportunities but the many other resources as well—various articles and products to nourish your friendship with God. You will hear more from me, too, before very long.

May the peace of Christ surround you now and always,
Vinita

No related posts.

Each week’s reflection is drawn from a chapter of Days of Deepening Friendship. While it is not necessary to read these chapters to participate, it will likely enhance your experience. This week’s reflection is based on Chapter 10 (download the pdf).

Let’s get started.

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View this week’s video reflection:

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Listen to this week’s audio reflection: Easter: “What would it take to say yes to love?”

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So if you have been raised with Christ, seek the things that are above, where Christ is, seated at the right hand of God. . . . for you have died, and your life is hidden with Christ in God. -Colossians 3:1, 3

Christ died, and Christ rose from the dead, ushering in a whole new reality for the human race. In union with Jesus Christ, our lives transcend mortality. Yes, we go through this life as human beings, but our lives are now more than this physical and limited existence.

We are free now to experience God’s love, and to love God in a reciprocal relationship. Because Jesus exploded the boundaries, we are able to live as friends of God. And friendship thrives on love that is expressed, returned, and free to grow.

Are we ready for this? Do we dare participate in the give-and-take of a love relationship with the Divine? Can we let go of life as we know it in order to say yes to God’s love? What does it take to say yes to this kind of love?

We can get an idea by considering our experience of human love. We know that, in saying yes to the love of another person, we make ourselves vulnerable. We open ourselves in a way that is exciting yet frightening. We also know that, in saying yes to the love of another, we are saying yes to change. Sooner or later, a love relationship will transform us. We will stretch and grow. We will take risks. We may even act foolish for the sake of that love.

In saying yes to the love that led Jesus through suffering and death, to the love that brought him back from the dead, we are opening ourselves to a power that transforms. This love creates life out of desolation and brings renewal out of injury. God’s love is courageous and creative. When we walk out of Easter Sunday and into a life powered by this love, who knows what will happen? Only God knows.

What does it take to say yes to love? It takes a sense of adventure. It also requires trust in the one who loves us. But this trust will grow with each step we take.

A Spiritual Exercise for This Week

If you can, read the entire chapter of 1 Corinthians 13 every day this week. Journal about the many aspects of love it describes.

When you consider saying yes to God’s love, does anything cause you to hesitate or fear?

When you consider saying yes to God’s love, does anything cause you to feel hopeful or happy?

Remember a time when you dared to open up to another person’s love. What happened?

And finally, walk out the door of your home today, and look outside, and think of how God surrounds you. And dare to say “Yes!”

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I invite you to post your comments and questions and I will respond throughout the week. Don’t forget to join me next Tuesday for a wrap up to this Lenten experience (I’ll send a reminder).

No related posts.

Each week’s reflection is drawn from a chapter of Days of Deepening Friendship. While it is not necessary to read these chapters to participate, it will likely enhance your experience. This week’s reflection is based on Chapter 40 (download the pdf).

Let’s get started.

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View this week’s video reflection:

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Listen to this week’s audio reflection: Holy Week: “Why is passion important?”

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Out of his anguish he shall see light;
he shall find satisfaction through his knowledge.
The righteous one, my servant, shall make many righteous,
and he shall bear their iniquities. -John 12:27

The majority of us have much more in common with Jesus than we think. How many of us have cared long-term for a family member or accompanied a loved one right up to death’s door? How many of us have remained at the side of a troubled child or helped a friend bear up under an endless legal battle or prolonged unemployment? There are dictionary definitions of passion, but my use of the word is pretty simple: Passion is love that stays no matter what.

Passion carries the load that seems unbearable. Passion walks all the way to the destination of suffering because of the good that will result. Jesus persevered even though he could have opted out of the anguish of Good Friday. By his own will he followed the will of God the Father, and he did it for our sakes.

Jesus lived out, and died for, passionate love for us. But he wasn’t the only one demonstrating passion during the events of Holy Week. Those who stayed by Jesus also demonstrated holy passion. Mary his mother, Mary Magdalene, and a handful of others went the entire distance and witnessed the horror of Jesus’ execution. They stayed until he died, and then followed Joseph of Arimathea, who took the body and laid it in a tomb he owned. The women were there, because they took note of the spot.

Then, in the frightening aftermath of the crucifixion, some of these same women went early on Sunday morning to the tomb to finish anointing the body and dressing it for proper burial. They did this in a climate quite dangerous for anyone associated with Jesus of Nazareth; his disciples were in hiding throughout Jerusalem. But in the minds of these women, the work of love was not yet complete. We have to understand that at this point they were horribly confused. Their Messiah, upon whom they had placed all their hopes, was dead. Perhaps they no longer believed he was the Messiah, yet they loved him as their teacher and friend, and nothing would keep them from following through on that love.

When Jesus suffered and died, the Divine entered human anguish. God’s only Son stayed with us clear through the torture and the emotional distress and spiritual desolation and right into death itself. Passion is love that stays to the bitter end. We express this love when we stay close to those who suffer, regardless of what it costs us. Because each one of us has suffered in this life, we understand something of Christ’s passion. As we contemplate his journey of Holy Week, we can experience a special fellowship with God.

A Spiritual Exercise for This Week

This week, write a little story. It’s the story about the most passionate thing you’ve ever done. By passionate I mean an act of love that was fiercely devoted and didn’t give up.

Also, write a story about one of the most passionate loves you have ever witnessed. This might be the love of a parent caring for a terminally ill child. It could be a love that faced danger and rejection, or a love that kept praying and hoping in spite of horrible circumstances.

Then pray about the passion in your life. What kind of love do you dream about? How do you want your own love to grow and develop?

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I invite you to post your comments and questions and I will respond throughout the week. I will also be available every Wednesday from 10 am-Noon CST to communicate with you in real time. Don’t forget to join me next week (I’ll send a reminder).

No related posts.

Each week’s reflection is drawn from a chapter of Days of Deepening Friendship. While it is not necessary to read these chapters to participate, it will likely enhance your experience. This week’s reflection is based on Chapter 32 (download the pdf).

Let’s get started.

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View this week’s video reflection:

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Listen to this week’s audio reflection: Fifth Week of Lent: “What can Jesus teach you about engagement?”

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Now my soul is troubled. And what should I say—‘Father, save me from this hour’? No, it is for this reason that I have come to this hour. Father, glorify your name. -John 12:27

We Christians usually have no problem thinking of Jesus as God in the flesh, that is, fully God. But we don’t really consider what it means that Jesus was also fully man. We like to think that he understood everything completely and knew ahead of time what would happen. We think of him as never being disturbed or tired or confused.

Since Jesus was human, just as we are, then he had to develop and learn, just as we do. His every day unfolded before him, and he received each day and worked with whatever happened. Some days he healed many sick and cast out demons, and other days he had to debate with quite educated religious leaders who wanted to figure him out or trip him up.

We know that Jesus spent much time in prayer, private time with his heavenly Father. He developed the ability to quiet his soul and listen for God’s voice. He did not hesitate to express to God his needs, his questions, his ideas for the next step. These are precisely the skills we need to learn.

As we see in the Scriptures, Jesus said, “My soul is troubled.” When Jesus engaged with God, he did so as someone who needed insight, comfort, and encouragement.

As we engage with God, we don’t have to be completely wise all at once. We don’t have to have all the answers. This journey of faith does not sail through life without encountering some troubled waters. We know that this is what happened to Jesus, and he is our companion in times of darkness and struggle.

Next week is Holy Week, when we will recount the great suffering of our Lord on the way to the cross. This week, let’s try to sit with Jesus and observe him as a person with needs like our own. Let’s sit with Jesus in the presence of God the Father and learn how to be daughters and sons who are active participants in this relationship.

A Spiritual Exercise for This Week

Jesus was born to an oppressed people in an occupied country. His parents were of modest means. The Scriptures tell us that he grew in favor with people and with God, that he was obedient to his parents. At age twelve he engaged the religion teachers in the temple at Jerusalem; probably from an early age he loved the Scriptures and the faith of his people. But he was a tradesman, trained under his father to be a carpenter. He never married nor had children.

How would you describe your life in a paragraph? Into what society were you born, and what shaped your early years? What resources did you receive from your family, whether personal traits or material goods? And what have you done to earn a living? Have you become a wife or husband, or a parent?

Jesus developed a relationship with God through the life he had and the resources at his disposal. He could have wished for a more sophisticated education (shouldn’t a Messiah be a highly esteemed rabbi?) or searched after the family life that was the norm for Jewish men. But his was a unique path, and he engaged it fully.

How might you take hold of your life with more confidence this week? What resources or bits of history have you dismissed or even despised? Can you see how those things may have prepared you for the tasks ahead? Can you receive the life you have—rather than the life you wish for—as a gift to be used to the fullest?

It can be difficult to accept the life we have and to think that we have everything necessary to live with great spiritual energy and purpose. Spend some time this week talking with Jesus about what helps or hinders your engaging with God.
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I invite you to post your comments and questions and I will respond throughout the week. I will also be available every Wednesday from 10 am-Noon CST to communicate with you in real time. Don’t forget to join me next week (I’ll send a reminder).

Related posts:

1. The Season of Hope: Jesus in Us

Each week’s reflection is drawn from a chapter of Days of Deepening Friendship. While it is not necessary to read these chapters to participate, it will likely enhance your experience. This week’s reflection is based on Chapters 29-30 (download the pdf).

Let’s get started.

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View this week’s video reflection:

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Listen to this week’s audio reflection:

Fourth Week of Lent: “What are desolation and consolation?”

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You have turned my mourning into dancing;
you have taken off my sackcloth and clothed me with joy,
so that my soul may praise you and not be silent. -Mark 12:34

Lent is a time for soul searching, and whenever we examine our lives, we pray for discernment. We want to go in the right direction. We want to follow the best of all options. So we try to open our hearts and minds, and we ask the Holy Spirit for understanding.

Times of soul searching are often quite emotional. We may experience a lot of sadness and grief for our sins, our failures, our dashed hopes. Then again we might experience surges of gratitude and joy. We may be filled with the conviction that God is truly with us, and so we feel completely free and light.

When we go through spiritual upheaval or renewal—and sometimes those are one in the same—we can experience emotional extremes that aren’t easy to interpret. Am I feeling down because it’s February and I’m sick of winter? Am I in a good mood today because I’ve cut back on fatty foods during Lent and my body is cleansed for a change, resulting in more energy? Am I crying through my prayers because the Holy Spirit is speaking to me, or because it’s been so long since I’ve really talked to God that there’s a lot of pent-up emotion? And was I joyful yesterday mainly because we sang one of my favorite hymns?

St. Ignatius of Loyola directed people to pay attention to consolation and desolation, and spiritual directors today help people understand what those are and how to work with them. I like to think of consolation and desolation as the broad spectrum of our spiritual intuition. Desolation is the dark and negative end; we experience desolation when our spirit is wrestling with a hard decision, when we sense sin in our life, or when some aspect of our life is not well and we must face it. Consolation is our spiritual sense that we are going in the right direction, that God is blessing us, that our sins are forgiven and our relationship with God is healthy.

Because the Holy Spirit dwells in us, we can trust that the Spirit is working with our natural sense, emotion, desire, and intuition. If we’re sensing an emotional darkness, that is probably a sign that we need to attend to something. If we desire to take a specific action, it may well be that our very desire will help us fulfill God’s purposes for us. And as Christians we can learn to rely on our hunches as we discern the best thing to do.

However, because we are human and are affected by everything from the weather to fatigue to our own mixed motives, we have to bring all of our signals and inclinations to God in prayer so that we can understand the dynamics of our interior life and interpret them appropriately.

Consolation and desolation can make us feel emotionally volatile sometimes, but these indicators are gifts from God, who designed us to be wise and discerning. Lent is a wonderful time for revisiting the way we work with our emotions, our dreams, our desires, and our misgivings. In Christ we are spiritually alive, and we can make choices as mature daughters and sons of God.

A Spiritual Exercise for This Week

If you know someone you can talk comfortably with about spiritual matters, set up a time to talk about consolation and desolation. That is, discuss what kinds of interior signals help you understand what’s going on in your lives. How do your emotions, desires, and intuition help you make decisions?

If you can’t have this discussion with a person you know, then go to some spiritual autobiographies and find out how other Christians have made discernments about the spiritual life.

Pray for help with understanding how God is leading you through consolation and desolation. Sometimes just being more aware of these matters takes us a long way in learning about them.

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I invite you to post your comments and questions and I will respond throughout the week. I will also be available every Wednesday from 10 am-Noon CST to communicate with you in real time. Don’t forget to join me next week (I’ll send a reminder).

No related posts.

No related posts.

Each week’s reflection is drawn from a chapter of Days of Deepening Friendship. While it is not necessary to read these chapters to participate, it will likely enhance your experience.

This week’s reflection is based on Chapter 23 (download the pdf).

Let’s get started.

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View this week’s video reflection:

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Listen to this week’s audio reflection: Third Week of Lent: “Where is the Holy Spirit in this conversation?”

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When Jesus saw that he answered wisely, he said to him, “You are not far from the kingdom of God.” Mark 12:34

A person can be skilled, well-educated, and endowed with the IQ of a genius. But all of these do not wisdom make. Wisdom is but one result when the Holy Spirit dwells in a person to merge with natural ability and spiritual openness. As we journey through the remainder of this Lenten season, we can sharpen our awareness of the Spirit’s work in our lives.

Jesus called the Holy Spirit our Advocate, one who would help us. How does this help appear in the midst of our Lenten prayers and meditations? For one thing, the Spirit helps us pray, communicating our needs to God the Father, even when we don’t know what or how to pray.

The Holy Spirit also helps us remember what we have already learned on our spiritual journey. When we read Scripture or pray the Rosary or sit in silence, the Holy Spirit helps us pull together the various pieces of experience so that we can perceive the larger story of faith.

And the Holy Spirit moves through our very being, working with our emotions, ideas, and intuition. In some mysterious way, God within us communicates with God beyond us. We receive help in expressing our prayers, and we also receive God’s response to those prayers.

So we can approach our Lenten devotions in an attitude of hope and confidence. We know that our prayers, however muddled or distracted, will be translated to heaven as precisely the prayers we need to express. And we know that God will attend to those prayers and respond to us.

It might help if we think of the Holy Spirit as our story keeper. Most of us keep scrapbooks and mementos, and we remember the stories our grandparents told and pass them on to the next generation. We cherish the memories and review the events through journals and photographs. This is not much different from what the Holy Spirit does in our individual lives and in the community of faith. All the important pieces are saved, and the conversations are preserved. And with every remembrance, our faith and wisdom grow and mature.

This is what it means to be part of the kingdom of God; we live in the larger story, and in the process we learn that story, one scene after another.

A Spiritual Exercise for This Week

The Holy Spirit sometimes speaks to us through others, such as a favorite teacher or a wise older woman you trust completely. Imagine you are in conversation with this person. Find a place to go two or three times this week where you and this person can sit and talk.

During one of these talks, take out an imaginary scrapbook that is the history of your life with God. Linger on particular events or memories.

During another conversation, try to describe the many ways that prayer expresses itself in your life: traditional prayers or those in your own words, songs you sing or music you hum, tears or laughter, sighs or silence. Identify the many feelings represented in these prayers, and also the many desires.

During another conversation, dwell on a specific passage of Scripture. It could be a favorite psalm or one of the Lectionary readings for the week. Ask your wise friend questions about this Scripture. Explain what that Scripture means to you and why.

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I invite you to post your comments and questions and I will respond throughout the week. I will also be available every Wednesday from 10 am-Noon CST to communicate with you in real time. Don’t forget to join me next week (I’ll send a reminder).

No related posts.

Each week’s reflection is drawn from a chapter of Days of Deepening Friendship. While it is not necessary to read these chapters to participate, it will likely enhance your experience.

This week’s reflection is based on Chapter 8 (download the pdf).

Let’s get started.

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View this week’s video reflection:

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Listen to this week’s audio reflection: Second Week of Lent: “Why is it hard to come to God?” (Audio)

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If God is for us, who is against us? He who did not withhold his own Son, but gave him up for all of us, will he not with him also give us everything else? Romans 8:31–32

It’s not that hard to admit that we need God’s help in this life. Only the most proud or the most foolish believe they are truly self-sufficient. Yes, we need God. Yes, we can seek from God whatever we need—help, comfort, or guidance.

But actually taking the step toward God can be not only difficult but complex. A lot of things can get in the way.

Pain. It’s possible to be in so much pain that we cannot move. We are paralyzed, numb, almost without sense. So we do nothing but remain in our deep hurt.

Shame. We can’t come to God and tell lies at the same time. This spiritual process requires that we face our embarrassments, shortcomings, failures, and sins, and the shame of all this holds us back.

Anger. It really is all right to come to God angry, but many of us don’t feel that it’s all right. We’re deeply disappointed in God—for not rescuing us from a situation, for allowing us to suffer loss, for not giving us what we wanted—and that anger prevents any steps in God’s direction.

Fear. We may fear punishment. We may fear God’s disapproval. We may fear that God won’t act or say what we’re hoping for. And we may fear that, in coming to God, we’ll need to change in some way.

How do we overcome these obstacles? How do we come to God when pain, shame, anger, or fear is blocking the path?

Remember one simple fact: God is for us, not against us. God waits for us, eager to help with our pain, shame, anger, or fear. The only thing to do is step forward and bring to God whatever burden hinders us.

A Spiritual Exercise for This Week

Go for a walk and imagine Jesus walking with you (because he is). Your main topic for conversation is the difficulty you sometimes have in coming to God freely and with hope.

Is there pain that uses up your energy and gets in the way of any forward movement?

Are you ashamed or disappointed in yourself? Can you talk with Jesus about this, and then listen to his response?

Is your heart filled with anger—at yourself, others, or God? If so, can you bring yourself to voice that anger and open it up for discussion?

What is your deepest fear concerning your relationship with God? Try to describe this fear to Jesus, and then listen for his response.

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I invite you to post your comments and questions and I will respond throughout the week. I will also be available every Wednesday from 10 am-Noon CST to communicate with you in real time. Don’t forget to join me next week (I’ll send a reminder).

No related posts.