Thy will be done, or my will be done?

I recently watched a sermon by Father Anthony Messeh about how we need to stop making excuses for ourselves. Now you might be thinking, "I never make excuses, or my excuses are valid cause I am really busy." I used that one already as soon as I first started watching. What I didn't realize was that I was already in the devil's trap. I already had thoughts in my head that everything was about me and not about God. Whenever we think of wanting to change, often times the excuses start with the word, "I". I don't have time, or I'm pretty good how I am right now. I have a tight schedule or I'll wait till tomorrow. At that moment, we already excluded God out of the equation. It's like we are fortunate enough to know God's will, but we are too lazy to act upon it because of our selfishness. Think about a person that is trying to reach out to you and you respond by using all of the above excuses. Wouldn't you look at yourself and say wow that was pretty rude! We are doing the same thing to God, except instead of that person just walking away because he or she was being ignored by you, God is still there with open arms saying I'm not giving up! I still want you! I still LOVE you! What more can you ask for?!

Now, Father Anthony Messeh talks about the difference between good intentions and God intentions. We all start with the will to change. That is just the good intention. However, that is not enough. What good is the will if you have no motivation to act upon it? Good intentions have a slight negative connotation with that as well. Usually we use that term if we are disappointed but give the person the benefit of the doubt by saying, "at least they had good intentions." The act may be good or bad with good intentions. That is why good intentions are not enough. The act, or the action, must be good along with the intention. God intentions, however, are what God has stored for us, basically God's will. Now we shift what we want or our will, to God's will. Father Anthony brings up a good point and says we even doubt our God intentions because of lack of trust or doubt of God. We doubt God's will because we doubt the power of God and we doubt it is really for the best. We are all guilty of this. The devil is saying to us, "is this really what you want?", "you have better things to do", or "this won't really make you happy." However, do you not think our all-powerful, all mighty, all-knowing God has not thought everything out for you already? Do you not think he has your best interests in mind when he wants you to do His will? This reminds me of the verse that I read in Matthew the other day:

"Therefore I say to you, do not worry about your life, what you will eat or what you will drink; nor about your body, what you will put on. Is not life more that food and the body more than clothing? Look at the birds of the air, for they neither sow nor reap nor gather into barns; yet your heavenly Father feeds them. Are you not of more value than they?" Mt 6:25

How are we able to worry when God says that He has everything under control? The only reason we worry is if we do not truly trust in Him or if we are separated from Him.  We often over complicate things by saying God's will is so difficult to find! How will we ever know His will? How will we know if God isn't directly speaking to us? Now I have a question, how is your relationship with God? How often do you include God in your daily life? Cause the fact of the matter is, God doesn't want it to be difficult. The difficulty comes when we are away from God. The further away you are, the more secluded you are, and therefore the more it is your will, and not God's will. When we focus too much on our will or our intentions instead of God's will or our God intentions, we start to worry because our will is not stable by any means. We may think something is good for us, but in the end it can really harm us. We are never sure of the future.  However, when is God's will we can always be ensured that in the end, His will is always the best path for us. God knows our future, he knows us more than we know ourself.

Now someone might add, this is all happy and comforting and all, but then why do we suffer sometimes when we are following God's will? Why is there persecution? We are we tormented sometimes for doing the right thing? There are two arguments against this. The first is whether you are really doing God's will, or are you just convincing yourself that it is. We are very good at masking our desires by claiming that we think God wants us to do certain things. In fact, we are experts. It's like reading the Bible and interpreting a verse in the way you like it. It may be crystal clear what God is telling you, but you are interpreting it in the way that works best for you. So the first argument against these questions is to re-evaluate and reflect on what you are doing and why you are doing it.
The second argument against this is that God's will for innocent suffering is most clear after the fact. Meaning that it is very hard to discern why you are suffering in the middle of it. Someone might use the argument how is it God's will that a child dies? You can't judge God's plan while it is happening because our mind is so limited to the present and our emotions get in the way. You may not necessarily be thinking rationally. Let's look at the book of Job. So many terrible things happened to him, and in the end he was blessed ten thousand times more because of his strong and unshaken faith!! God used everything and re-calculated so that Job became such a strong believer. God starts to tell him why everything happened by the end. When we ask God a question, sometimes he shows us the bigger and better picture in our lives and the smaller questions that we have in mind will be answered along the way. So the second argument against these questions is patience. God will reveal to you everything in due time as long as you are patient and have full trust in Him.

"Trust in the Lord with all your heart, and lean not on your own understanding. In all things acknowledge him, and He shall direct your paths." Proverbs 3:5-6

Do I really know who I am?

Dear God,

We often tell ourselves that we know our personality and exactly who we are because of our experiences  with different situations. But, do we actually know ourselves because of how we reacted at that given moment? I realized that people influence how we react to different solutions so much and we think it was all us. I did not understand what my sister meant when she said "I changed". I took it so offensive. What does she mean I changed? I thought about it and realized that people in college took a huge toll on me. I used to not even bother with silly situations, drama, or petty arguments that happened every other day.  I got so involved in them that I was shaking at one point. Is that really who I am? Why was I surrounding myself with these people with no substance? When every other day we were talking about the what happened the night before. What about during the day?....silence. I realized that my personality is not what makes me, it is just a part of me. What really defines me, is the characteristics people cannot see--ones that I can only get from God.  Faith, love, happiness, joy, trust, humbleness, gratitude and patience are all virtues that truly define someone. I can only know myself by measuring the quality of these characteristics in my life.  It is a struggle, when you forget about these qualities because of the people you surround yourself with; and i'm not saying they're bad people.  I'm just saying that they do not lead the true Christian life that I wish to lead.

I now understand why so many desert monks isolate themselves from the world.  I wonder what it would be like to be a hermit...to isolate myself from these negative influences.  Only then would I realize who I truly am. Without a strong relationship with God, you cannot know yourself. That's just it, I have to realize that without God, I am nobody. I am nothing.  When you do grow a loving relationship with God, you realize you are someone. You have a purpose. You are His child and He wants you to flourish in the best way possible.  So God, help me. Don't ever leave me. Be with me always, because without You, I am nothing.  Help me find who I am, because you are the only one who knows. Do not let people tell me who I am because only you know my capability.  Allow me to discover it with You, Lord. Amen.

Open mindedness or hypocrisy?

Somehow people always manage to believe what they want, even if they have a set belief to live by.  I wonder whether this is healthy or just another way to make excuses for oneself to stray from the known law, which in this case is the Bible.  One cannot help but think that living directly by the Bible and applying it today's society can seem sort of naive considering the Bible was written thousands of years ago. But then other people will tell you that the Bible is timeless and was written to apply to situations that come up in our daily lives as well. So here, we have a contradiction. What do we do when we come across a situation in which we need to open our minds in accepting other people's beliefs, cultures, and actions?  I think that as Christians we must be able to accept where other people are coming from and even relate to them in any way possible because that is the only way to spread the love in showing that you care for that person, instead of just completely isolating yourself because you have different beliefs.  I do agree in that we must distance ourselves from people that show no interest in what you have to say as well.  For example, if someone wanted to drag you in whatever they were doing with no respect for what you have to say, just admit that the person should not be a part of your daily life.  In order to become a better person and continue to grow, we must choose the people we want to invest our time in. Shout out to Sandra Habib for teaching me that one! But it's true. The minute you start letting people shape who you are in a negative way, that is when you need to realize that those aren't the kind of people you should be spending your time with.

However, sometimes we think we can't spend time with anyone because no one completely understands us. Why waste the time? Why should we try to be close with someone when we know that the friendship won't go anywhere because you always have your guard up. In this case, I say put more faith into people. You are not alone in this world even if you really think you are because your values and morals are different from those around you. In fact, this makes you who you are and shapes you as a person because every individual in unique in their own way.  The sadness that you receive because you feel too individualistic or too different should be turned to happiness because at least you are figuring out who you are at a rate faster than anyone else.  I do believe that more and more people are turning away from the church because they believe they do not "fit in" and "no one understands them."In this I think you should be aware that you have an open mind instead of being a close minded psychopath who is trying to live up to a standard while shunning everyone in their way. Do not think you are an obstacle to the people around you in any way if you have different perspectives on situations.  I might even add that the people who have no opinion on things are simply taking everything in just like their robots.  Questioning your faith is not a bad thing.  You are not being a hypocrite if you have some disagreements. What is at fault here is if you do not have the effort to continue and find answers from multiple people in order to come up with your own.  Father Moussa once told me, "doubting your faith is the first step to owning it".  This means that if you are born and raised in the faith, you basically inherited it and have no choice to what you believe.  But if you keep questioning and have a difference in opinion, then you can accept your faith because you believe it to be true and not because other people said it was true.  All in all, I think open mindedness should be considered as more of a gift than a temptation or a sin because it proves that you are capable of thinking as an individual.