Today we will take a look at the more practical side of obedience.
In the beginning God brought forth order out of chaos, He set about creating and ultimately made male and female in His own image. The original plan was for Adam and Eve and their descendants to be in constant relationship with Him. Everything that they ever could need was set before them in the garden. Their only desire was for the One who could truly satisfy them, all they wanted was to be near Him and to do His will. Then sin entered in. The relationship was broken, and as if a spell was put on humanity, a sin induced haze came upon us. We forgot whose we were. We still had desires that needed to be fulfilled…where before the desire itself was focused, with this great breech it seemed to splinter…so many wants and yet no idea of how to fulfill them. We have inherited this great ache. Generation after generation still yearns for something they can’t quite comprehend. We’ve started making ‘gods’ out of things that can never fully satisfy us. Money, sex, power and on and on. But our hearts were created for one thing and one thing alone. God Himself.
If you are like me, sitting there right now with a particular area of your life in chaos…or maybe even multiple areas. There is hope! Jesus is God’s answer to this monumental disarray. Yesterday we saw how obedience to God shows faith in action. That principle applies even to the smallest, most mundane areas of our lives. God doesn’t want to be left out of what is happening with us and to be relegated to Sunday morning visits only. No…remember that He wants a personal and intimate relationship with us. So obedience even in the smallest things, releases our faith and prepares the way for amazing things to take place. He covers us with His grace! Will things always work out the way we want them to, of course not, we don’t always know best. But we trust that He does and that what He allows is indeed for our best.
So the first thing in step 1 in caring for SELF, the temple of the Holy Spirit, is to become aware of the chaos areas of our lives especially as it pertains to our bodies. Are we nourishing our bodies properly, do we get enough exercise, how about rest? If we don’t take good care of ourselves then we might find that the enemy can get at us a lot easier. The acronym HALT, tells us what to be aware of. It suggests that we should never allow ourselves to get too Hungry, too Angry, too Lonely, or too Tired. The Lord can’t bring healing to an area that we are trying to hide from Him or from ourselves. We need to glance at the messes only to acknowledge them and then we must move on. We don’t dwell there, if we are tempted to do so, we know it is coming from the enemy. We move on by giving that area of our lives to the One who best knows how to handle it. We offer it up. We ask for discernment on what steps if any we need to take. Once we get some clarity, then we act on it. That is practical obedience.
Have a blessed day everybody.
Please go listen to Fr. Lauer’s talk for today.