Look for the Back Seat

 

Mother Teresa instructed her Sisters to always take the back seat on a bus or train. In her wisdom, she knew that the practice of choosing the least desirable location would help keep herself and her Sisters humble. Sometimes a person in authority, seeing Mother Teresa sitting in the back, would invite her to sit up front, and she would follow him to the front with gratitude. Some critics would say, “That’s the same as taking the front seat to begin with!” But it’s not: By taking the back seat, she took the chance that that’s where she’d stay. It required humility to deliberately choose the lowest place and be content to stay there. It also gave the person in authority an opportunity to offer a kind gesture, which she graciously accepted.

 “If anyone wishes to be first, he shall be the last of all and the servant of all.” – Mark 9:35

Being humble doesn’t mean you think you’re worthless. It’s thinking less about yourself, not thinking less of yourself. YOU are a beloved child of God with gifts and talents and, yes, weaknesses that make you uniquely equipped to serve Him in the people around you. In this verse, putting yourself last doesn’t mean putting yourself down. Rather, putting others ahead of you builds them up and helps them see how precious and beloved they are, too. Imagine our world if we all did that!

If you’re a person with power, you can still be humble. In the Gospel of Luke, the centurion’s slave was dying (see Luke 7:1-10). At first, this Roman military officer sent messengers to Jesus, asking Him to come to his house and heal his servant. Then, while Jesus was on His way there, the centurion changed his mind and sent more messengers to tell Him, “Lord, do not trouble yourself, for I am not worthy to have you enter under my roof… but say the word and let my servant be healed.” Maybe at first he wanted to experience what others had seen -- Jesus performing a healing. Soon after, though, he was willing to ‘take the back seat.’ He abandoned the opportunity to witness a miracle and, instead, asked Jesus to heal his servant from a distance, maybe so he’d be healed sooner. The centurion put his servant ahead of himself by acknowledging the power of Christ and dismissing what he could gain from the encounter.

This week, take a lesson from Mother Teresa and the centurion. Look for ways to put yourself in the back seat and put others ahead of you, not in ways that put you down but in ways that pick them up.

“Lord, help me to see how I can lift up the people around me.”

If you enjoy reading these reflections, please tell your friends! Through this blog, I hope to inspire you to ponder a given topic and then seek deeper answers through prayer, additional spiritual reading, and/or consultation with clergy or other persons who may guide you to a deeper faith and understanding of God’s love and will for your life.

Let Him Speak to You

 

Some of us have gotten so used to all the sounds around us we don’t hear them anymore. For example, city dwellers get accustomed to traffic noise; they might feel uncomfortable in the silence of the countryside. If you live close to church bells that toll at regular intervals every day, you may find you don’t hear them unless you intentionally listen for them.

 “The Lord God opens my ear that I may hear;

And I have not rebelled, have not turned back.” – Isaiah 50:5

 

God so wants you to experience His love, He actively pursues you to make that happen. He uses a variety of media to get your attention and wants you to make the effort to hear Him:  Let your mind be awed by the wonders of the changing seasons. Feel the love in a stranger’s act of kindness. Let your heart burst with the miracle of a newborn and the innocent joy of giggling toddlers. Appreciate the loving hospitality of family and friends. The list goes on and on.

When you look for God in ‘ordinary’ events -- with awe rather than indifference -- you’ll find the holy in them. You’ll notice that He uses you to answer others’ prayers, and He uses others to answer your prayers. This happens especially in situations that you used to write off as mere coincidence. Once you start paying attention to them in His light, you’ll see many of these as treasured ‘God moments.’

Another way to strengthen your faith and get clarity of what God is trying to tell you is to take a few moments during your quiet prayer time to write down whatever random thoughts come to mind. Listen for God speaking to YOU in the written words of Scripture, and pay attention to the thoughts that ‘pop into your head.’ You may find that they’re not so random after all and give answers you hadn’t thought of before.

God wants to have a loving relationship with you. He wants to speak to you, and He wants you to speak to Him in your own simple words. Look for Him, and listen.

 “Lord, open my ears to hear Your declarations of love all around me. Encourage me to share Your love with others.”

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Take Time to Recharge

                        

 “…aspire to live a tranquil life…” –1 Thessalonians 4:11

During His ministry, Jesus was a busy guy: healing cripples, feeding multitudes, casting out demons, forgiving sins. Huge crowds followed Him, wanting to hear His hopeful message of God’s love and maybe witness a miracle. He frequently made it a point, though, to get away from the crowds to recharge. Was His intent to hide from the people? Not at all. He removed Himself physically so that He could let the Father refresh Him spiritually.

Since we also are called to serve the people God has put in our life, it’s good for us to take time to ‘get away from it all’ on a regular basis – away from our routine, our phone and other devices – and let Him refresh us. Stepping away even for a little while brings about a surprisingly freeing feeling. There are countless ways to do this. My husband and I have found hiking and tent camping to be the ultimate getaways! They say that walking relieves stress, and following marked, scenic trails in the woods gives you time to relax, reflect, and pray. Camping immerses you in the wonders of God’s magnificent creation.  You don’t have to camp or hike a trail, though, to find this serenity. Getting away could be as simple as unplugging and sitting in a quiet room, on your porch swing or a park bench, or taking a walk around your neighborhood, and thanking God for your many blessings. Getting away also could be much bigger, like going on a retreat for a day or a weekend. No matter how you do it, the point is to step out of your routine, free yourself from your electronics and other distractions, and invite God to refresh you spiritually.

This doesn’t mean you run away and ignore what’s happening in the world around you. On the contrary, when you take a step back, you open your eyes to the world as God created it, with all its beauty and goodness. You make room in your heart for more of God’s love so that you can share it generously with the people you encounter each day, in your particular circumstances:

^“Do not be overcome by evil, but overcome evil with good.” –Romans 12:21

Strive to live in tranquility. Step away for a bit to recharge. Frequently invite God to refresh your spirit.

“Lord, help me ‘get away’ with You so that I can serve You in others better.”

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The Lord Delights in YOU!

 

“The Lord takes delight in His people.” –Psalm 149:4

Let those words sink in: “The Lord takes delight in His people.” The Lord takes delight in YOU!

You know what He’s delighted with? All the goodness in your heart. He delights in your good intentions and aspirations. He delights in your hard work, how you care for your family and reach out to your friends. He delights in your humble works of service and your random acts of kindness. He delights in how you want to love Him and others a little better each day. Maybe you’ve had a conversion of heart and have abandoned your old, hurtful ways of doing things. God delights in your steps toward Him!

He created you and He knows all about you. He knows how much you want to follow Him and how hard you are on yourself when your efforts fall short. He knows your history, both the good and the bad, and He loves you with all of it. Are you spending time and energy ruminating about past sins? If you’ve already asked God to forgive you, why are you still hanging onto them? He doesn’t think about them anymore.

“As far as the east is from the west,
    so far has He removed our transgressions from us.” –Psalm 103:12

 

God wants you to recognize your own goodness! When you see that you’re good, you’ll want Him to fill you with more of His love so that you can love Him and others even more. Satan, on the other hand, wants you to focus only on your sins. If you believe his lie that you’re bad, you’ll mistakenly think that you’re unworthy of God’s love and incapable of loving others, and that God doesn’t want you near Him. Don’t listen to those lies! Don’t let Satan drag you down. Resolve every day to love God and to shower yourself and the people around you with the love He puts in your heart. Remind yourself every day that He has promised you eternal life!  

God loves you and delights in you! There is no limit to His love and forgiveness. Christ said it and He proves it when He makes Himself present to us in the sacraments of Reconciliation and Eucharist. Let all these thoughts fill you with joy, and then take this joy with you as you show the world God’s boundless love.

“Give thanks to the Lord, for He is good; His love endures forever.”  --Psalm 107:1

 

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Detachment and Freedom

The words that kept coming up this week were ‘detachment’ and ‘freedom.’ The former leads to the latter. Feel the freedom in this prayer:

“Take, Lord, and receive all my liberty,

my memory, my understanding, and my entire will,

all that I have and possess.

You have given all to me. To You, Lord, I return it.

All is Yours; dispose of it wholly according to Your will.

Give me Your love and Your grace, for this is sufficient for me.”

--Suscipe Prayer, St. Ignatius of Loyola

 In this prayer, we humbly detach ourselves from everything except God Himself: our material goods, interior blessings, and all the people we know and love. We recognize that all of it has been given to us by God; we don’t claim anything as our own. Instead, we open our hands and invite the Lord to take everything back.

We ask God to take from us anything that gets between us and Him, or gets in the way of how we love Him and each other. It encourages us to determine which habits, attitudes, and practices we need to detach ourselves from in order to make room in our hearts for His love and grace.

Offering everything back to God frees us from emotional baggage like greed, worry, and arrogance. For example, being detached from our material possessions allows us to freely share more of what we have with others. Ironically, yesterday morning I noticed that someone had stolen a flowerpot off our front porch. My heart sank: I was disappointed that I had one less flowerpot and also that someone felt the need to take it. And so I had to remind myself to stay detached: in this case, to acknowledge my disappointment, pray for the perpetrator, notice that I felt thankful that the other flowerpots and decorations were left untouched, and then give it all to God (see my blogpost, “Make Room for Flowers,” about giving up the ‘rocks’ in our hearts). Maybe I hadn’t freely offered those flowers, but later in the day I found myself thinking, “I hope they’re on someone else’s front porch, making them smile.”

I realize we’ve only scratched the surface of all the power behind this prayer. Still, let’s allow the words to sink into our souls. Let’s open our hearts and hands; let’s trust God to fill us with His love and grace and, by doing so, free ourselves to love as He loves.

“I sought the Lord, and He answered me; He set me free from all my fears.” –Psalm 34:5

 

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Make Room for Flowers

 Don’t you love seeing the beautiful variety of flowers in people’s yards, and wildflowers popping up everywhere? The landscape is bursting with color!

A vase full of rocks has no room for flowers. A heart full of rocks has no room for peace.

I like rocks, and love finding ones with fun shapes. But rocks don’t belong in a vase, and I try to keep them out of my heart.  What ‘rocks’ do we sometimes feel in our hearts? Things like hatred, greed, resentment, envy, and pride.

I’ll share with you a situation when God, in His immense goodness, removed from my heart the rock of pride. I had had an encounter with someone who offended me -- something we’ve all experienced. I felt hurt, and the problem grew not so much from their actions to me as from my recounting the incident over and over in my mind and nursing my bruised ego. As time went on, though, I realized that focusing on myself was dragging me down. I wanted God’s peace; I wanted to acknowledge the hurt, learn from it, and let it go. I knew that, since God had forgiven me (countless times) for offending others, I had to forgive those who offended me, and I couldn’t do this without His help. As all these thoughts swirled in my mind, I came upon this verse:

“All bitterness, fury, anger, shouting, and reviling must be removed from you, along with all malice. And be kind to one another, compassionate, forgiving one another as God has forgiven you in Christ.”—Ephesians 4:31-32

Boy, did that hit home. So I sat down and prayed: first, for the grace to let go of this grudge, and then for His blessings on the other person. Finally, I asked God to take away the rock in my heart and clear the way for His peace. I pictured myself picking up the rock, lifting it up to God and saying, “Here! Take this!”   

And God, in His infinite grace, freed me! The tightness in my chest loosened and the bitter feelings left me. I still had the intellectual knowledge of what had transpired, but the rock of pride was gone and the flower of peace took its place. You must understand that this was God’s doing, not mine! I then offered prayers of thanksgiving and asked Him for the strength to resist this sin in the future. Be assured that He can and will remove the rocks in our hearts over and over again if we trust in His goodness!

“Praise be to God, 

who has not rejected my prayer

  or withheld his love from me!”--Psalm 66:20

 

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Prayer of St. Francis -- Paraphrased

 

“Prayer is nothing else but union with God… My little children, your hearts are small, but prayer stretches them and makes them capable of loving God. Through prayer we receive a foretaste of heaven and something of paradise comes down upon us.” –St. John Vianney

Sometimes when we pray, we say the familiar words without actually praying them. Paraphrasing a familiar prayer is one way to give it greater meaning, which helps us pray it.  I’ve paraphrased The Prayer of St. Francis, a prayer that sets high the bar for holiness, in hopes that it inspires all of us to put its rich lessons into practice:

 

Lord, make me a person who brings Your peace to the people around me.

Help me remember that making peace or bringing peace 

is not the same as keeping the peace:

One is active and rooted in love; the other is passive and rooted in fear.

When I feel hatred, or when someone hates me,

let me treat them with kindness, pray for them,

and want nothing but goodness for them.

When there are offenses and hurt feelings,

let me be humble and either ask for or grant forgiveness.

When someone doubts You or Your goodness,

let me show them Your powerful love so they dare to have faith in You.

When someone feels despair,

let me listen with compassion and give them hope.

When someone lives in darkness, hiding, and fear,

let me show them the freedom of living in Your light and grace.

When someone feels sad,

let me offer a shoulder to cry on and give them reason to smile.

O Lord,

Let me strive to comfort others more than seek comfort for myself.

Let me try to understand more than seek to be understood.

Let me concern myself more with showing love than with receiving love.

Help me remember that when I give, I receive much in return;

as I pardon others, so will I be pardoned;

and by dying I will be raised to eternal life. Amen.

 

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