Bible Thumping

"I am for peace, but when I speak, they are for fighting," from Psalm 120 reflects a little bit of what I am feeling when a Facebook friend's status criticizes those who are "Bible thumping," which admittedly I am not sure what that means exactly, but given the context that I also link these posts to my Facebook account, I think it means me. So it's sometimes lonely being a Christian in a world where so many have not been taught the faith or simply reject it. Fortunately, I believe God would give me the strength to persevere on my own if I had to, but I am thankful that so many brothers and sisters in Christ are open to God's calling and continue to give me my strength through their encouragement when He urges them to. My greatest supporter is my wife Nancy, of course, but my children also provide a lot of intrinsic motivation because I want to do what's best for them and make them proud.

Fountain of salvation

Yesterday, when I was thinking about life-giving water, I was thinking about when it was discussed in the gospels like John 7:37, "If anyone thirsts, let him come to me and drink."

I had forgotten that it was foretold in Isaiah 12:1-6, "With joy you will drink water at the fountain of salvation."

Individually, both of these clearly speak to the spiritual and few would confuse it with literal water. Together, they also point to the fulfillment of the old testament in the new testament and not the replacement of the old with the new. Some truths are eternal, and even though times change, the spirit of truth does not. It does take prayer to and the guidance from the Holy Spirit to see how the truth expressed in biblical times applies in today's context, but it's always applicable, never able to be dismissed. In raising children, the context that they are growing up in is different than the world we grew up and it takes prayer and silence on our part to ask and listen to how the Holy Spirit wants us to answer today's calling for our children. Likewise, the way we applied the truth as single individuals may differ from the way we express it as a married person, but it's the still the same truth that God wants expressed in all walks of life and as our path changes, our expression of His truth should as well.

Good things

"He has filled the hungry with good things," quoting Mary from Luke (1:52-53) naturally makes one thing of food since Mary used the word "hungry" first. But when I look at the words "good things" in isolation, spiritual gifts come to mind. With that understanding, if I paraphrased her statement as, "He gives good things to the hungry," it suggests that our hearts should be hungry for spiritual gifts and not just that God will provide the faithful with good food if our stomachs are growling. Then obvious connections to the gospel's life-giving water or the teaching of seek and you will find are rekindled are in our hearts and provide light to our lives and those around us. As a father, I naturally provide my children with the food they need like carrots and sometimes even the food they want like M & M's (and I don't get any endorsment money for that), but providing a living example of our faith is a much better gift - whether they realize they are hungry for it or not.

Sin is increasing

I realize that the good old days weren't entirely good, though it certainly seems like our culture is worse now than it used to be in some ways in terms of fidelity, even though there was infidelity in the past. But perhaps it is better in other ways in terms of racism, even though racism still exists too. If you feel like sin has increased in the world, no matter how you may define that, you can take solace from from Paul who tells the Romans, "Sin has increased but grace has far surpassed it" (5:20). God's grace is always capable of overcoming evil for those open to God's grace and I suspect that anyone who is coming back to this simple blog periodically is the kind of person that is open to God's grace and will be instrumental in overcoming evil in their world.

Comments

I really enjoyed posting replies to comments posted privately concerning July 26 and 28 because I was actually turned off by the Catholic Church in high school too. My parish was so uncharismatic, and my friends' Presbyterian and Lutheran groups were just much more excited about their faith. So I started researching why some of the different churches believed different things and found that I agreed with more of the Catholic teachings than the others. Fortunately, in college, I found a group of Catholics excited about their faith too, so my original problem was really based on Catholics and not Catholicism. I still have problems with some Catholics because they call themselves Catholics, but but don't believe some of what Catholic Church believes. I think people should decide what they believe is true and then join a church that believes that and not join a church to be told what to believe.

Sowing

It was during my time at Youngstown State University studying administration that was a turning point in my faith journey. We were discussing how you can judge a person's priorities by how they spend their time as well as how they spend their money. I was conscious of giving what I felt was the right amount of money to the Church and various charities back then, but I had never thought about how I spent my time or how that may have spoken to my priorities. I was spending all my time with work related things, whether it be actual work or school work related to actual work. It was at that point that I decided to spend more time serving God, who I had always said was the most important thing in my life, but perhaps wasn't acting like it.

Nevertheless, I felt it was only responsible to complete my master's program before making this change. I came across the Secular Franciscans during my search and realized that was what I was looking for and didn't know it. During that time, I also realized how I could have been serving God while at work and at school. So even though I was doing the right thing by going to school, I was doing it for the wrong motives. I believe it was Mother Teresa who said it isn't what you do, but with how much love you do it. That relates to today's quote from Paul to the Galatians (6:7b-8): A man will reap only what he sows. If he sows in the field of the flesh, he will reap a harvest of corruption; but if his seed-ground is the spirit, he will reap everlasting life.

"Needs"

Paul tells the Phillipians (3:17-4:9) to "present your needs to God in every form of prayer and in petitions full of gratitude." However, I feel wants are sometimes confused with needs, so how does one really know what to pray for? Since it is the Holy Spirit that helps us pray, if our "needs" would fall under the category of one or more of the gifts of the Holy Spirit, it would be safe to say we are praying for our needs because we always need the gifts of the Holy Spirit and they will always be given to us: wisdom, understanding, knowledge, courage, counsel, piety, and fear.