While human beings break their promises time and time again, God keeps his. And God’s promises are pretty amazing! Today’s Psalms are filled with some of his promises. In a nut shell, today’s Psalms reveal to us that those who love, trust, and follow the Lord all good awaits them. Our hearts will be satisfied, justice will be ours, we will be sustained, and we will experience perfect refuge in him during our trials. Our God, the One who created the heavens and earth is the real deal – he is the promise keeper. However, there is a key that unlocks all this goodness and we must use it to open the door into God’s promised land. But, where is the key?
Endurance
“You need endurance to do the will of God and receive what he has promised.” Yes, indeed. We will need endurance to do God’s will, endurance is the key into God’s promised land. After all, the world continually presents challenges and opportunities that require our attention and we need endurance to move through these life experiences. Endurance to continually surrender it all to God is required.
Every day we are presented with a smorgasbord of life events and opportunities. Some are good and pleasing to us, while others are, well, not so good. And let’s face it, sometimes the going gets tough – real tough. Our smorgasbord choices can appear pretty indigestible at times. Yet, within each challenge and opportunity lives the potential to do the will of God and enter into his promised land.
The Kingdom of God
The Kingdom of God is all around us – it is indeed at hand. Yet, we perceive the world we live in through our human senses and our human intellect. Given this, we have inherent limitations holding us back from experiencing the fullness of God’s Kingdom. Like a little fish living in the ocean cannot grasp the beauty found in nature beyond the ocean, we cannot grasp the full beauty of God’s creation. Fortunately for us, God has promised us a pathway into his Kingdom. We are invited to enter it through his Son – the only way into the Kingdom.
In today’s Gospel Jesus speaks in parables in an attempt to help us better understand God’s Kingdom and the promises held within it. God’s Kingdom seems magical – and it is. Today’s parables each reveal a little seed that miraculously manifests into something beautiful. This manifestion is possible because inside the seed lives the divine spark of God. This little spark lives inside each and every one of us. Every time we are presented with a life challenge or opportunity we are afforded, with the help of endurance, an opportunity for our little spark to expand.
Using the Endurance Key
In life we will experience struggles – no doubt about that. No human being receives a “struggle free” card at conception. Scripture is pretty clear on the whole struggling thing, bad things are going to happen in this lifetime. Fortunately for us, God also offers us a way through our struggles. In order to find respite we must move through his Son. Jesus Christ is the only way into peace and happiness. He will teach us how to forgive and how to love more – the roads Christ takes us on while journeying into God’s Kingdom.
Endurance enables us to cling to Christ during our trials. Without endurance we will crumble and turn to the world for respite. When we surrender to the world we stay stuck on the roads of unforgiveness, fear, anger, and/or hate (the map goes on and on…). However, with endurance the divine spark within becomes illuminated. Hopefully our little spark expands into a full blown fire for the Lord! This expansion will soften our interior and help us become more pliable in God’s hands. Our little divine spark then nourishes the seed within and helps it transition into a beautiful manifestion awaiting the final harvest.
Surrendering to God
So this all sounds good. Who deep inside their interior doesn’t want all the promises of God? We all want our little spark to manifest into a full blown fire. Our little seed wants to become a beautiful tree. And we all want to experience the promises of God. After all, each and every person is created at the moment of their conception in the image of our all loving and benevolent God. Then, right after the moment of our conception we entered into the world and got hit with this crazy smorgasbord. So how do we navigate the smorgasbord and utilize our key of endurance?
Once of my favorite prayers to pray when facing a rather dim smorgasbord is the Suscipe Prayer by St Ignatius of Loyola, founder of the Jesuits. Inside this prayer lives the potential for our little spark to ignite and nourish the seed within. Why this little prayer you may ask? Because our full and complete surrender to God is required before we can fully enter into his Kingdom.
Suscipe Prayer
St. Ignatius of Loyola
Take, Lord, and receive all my liberty,
my memory, my understanding,
and my entire will,
All I have and call my own.
You have given all to me.
To you, Lord, I return it.
Everything is yours; do with it what you will.
Give me only your love and your grace,
that is enough for me.
Releasing Fear
I understand it can be hard to prayer this prayer while holding in your heart a full “YES” to God. I’ve been there – fearful to let go and let God. Sometimes giving up full control of our life over to God seems pretty scary. So here is a little thing I do when I come up against any resistance to full surrender – I offer up my resistance to God. Yup, that’s right, I give God all of my resistance! Any resistance to giving God all my liberty, memory, understanding, and my entire will gets offered up to God.
I know this can sound a bit scary at first – it was for me. However, what happens to the parts we hold back from God? The parts we are afraid to let go of? They remain vulnerable to the world and its false promises. Everything we surrender to God is protected under his promises. In other words, everything we give to God is kept safe for all eternity. I believe that surrendering our resistance to God actually transforms our resistance into a little spark. Then the little divine seed within is ignited and it begins to manifest into a tree living in God’s Kingdom. Stick with it, practice endurance and continually offer everything up to God. Then watch your little seed grow into a perfect tree in God’s promised land.
If you would like to read more about this prayer I invite you to visit my website here: Suscipe Prayer.
Global Light for Christ (GLFC)
Our community, GLFC, is a group of sojourners supporting one another in the smorgasbord of life. If you are trying to more fully surrender all of your resistance to God then are perfect for GLFC. All of us have little sparks within that can nourish seeds for God’s Kingdom – the place where we will experience his eternal promises:-)
I want to thank all of you who post here. When I sit with your petitions, often in the Adoration Chapel at my parish, my heart is deeply touched when I feel both your pain and the love we hold for each other. Even though we are separated by space and time we are together in love. What a blessing we have in our community.
God bless all of you. See you next week Friday – Carolyn
If you would like to learn more about my work and my ministry I invite you to visit my website: CarolynBerghuis.com
God the Father – hold us in your Fatherly love.
Most Sacred Heart of Jesus – heal us with your divine love.
God the Holy Spirit – immerse us in divine love.
