By Way of Confession…

By way of confession…

I have been going through a bit of a dry spell the last

couple of weeks.  I was looking for inspiration as to what it

was that God wanted me to share with you and I had mulled

over a few things but nothing came to mind immediately.
So, in a very Franciscan traditional way I prayed about it

and then, I went to scripture and opened the Bible 3 times

and found scriptures on in different places in the Bible.

So, without further adieu, here is what God laid before me.

First, 2 chronicles 28:5 In this scripture the King Ahaz has

sinned and offended God and because of that, their land, and

possessions and husbands, wives and children are all taken

away and imprisoned.

Second was proverbs 20:17  Which says that man finds bread

sweet  when it is got by fraud, but  later his mouth is full

of grit…

Finally- Mark 16:19-20 – where Christ ascends into

Heaven to take His place at the right hand of The Father.
SO, the question is what does God want to tell us today in these passages ?

It is simply this..We are given the responsibility to be the good stewards of the many varied graces and gifts that we are given.  Because of free will, we have the freedom to choose what it is that we do with the gifts we are given.

We desire greatly, to take on the work of our own travel down this road working on our own sanctification.  We make plans, and because of our fallen nature we fail.  Everyone falls, and it is something we all understand.  The important part of this is what happens when we fail.

On our own person journey to sanctification, we understand that we will do our best to falling into sin and error.  It is grace that causes us to desire to go down this road.

One of the things about our knowledge of faith is that the more we know… the easier it may seem that we fall into error.   You might pray.. Lord, help me with my patience.  I really desire to work on my patience so that I will be peaceful and more like you.

The Lord, wishing to fulfill our desires which is inevitably good for us, will no doubt provide you with the opportunity to work on your patience.    On the short side of that ride, it indeed might not be fun, and indeed, you may fail.  In fact you may fail a number of times.

You need to have to resolve to pick yourself up and continue on your journey to work on your patience, or what ever your working on, because ultimately we understand that even though in our human-ness we might fail, we have victory.

As for the bread that might be sweet, but eventually turns to grit ?  This is an admonition for us to have faith, and walk the path that the Lord has set before us.  Nothing of value is to be gained, by trying to set aside the work that God has put in front of us.  It might seem like it would be enjoyable to set that cross aside, but inevitably it will not end well for you because you would not gain from the lessons that those trials were meant to teach you.

In the end, Christ is victorious and ascends, and we who may suffer through our earthly trials and trudge through the pains and pressures of carrying the daily cross that He asks of us, we will go ahead and do that, and try to find the joy here, all the while attempting to help our brothers and sisters along their journey…. why ?

Because we already know that in Christ, we have already won the battle and in the end we will be victorious and ascend in Him.

May God give you the gift of His peace !

Tags: #dry, #proverb, bible, faith, Jesus, Mark, scripture, wisdom