Category: goodness of God

Before you knew God, God knew you

Sr. Dorcee, belovedLeave a comment

Just discovered this book, Run with the Horses (Eugene H. Peterson).  Wow.  You’re going to be reading some selections from it these next few posts.   If you’re someone who battles with a bad father image.  Here’s some ammunition.

Before Jeremiah knew God, God knew Jeremiah: “Before I shaped you in the womb, I knew all about you.”  This turns everything we ever thought about God around.  We think that God is an object about which we have questions.  We are curious about God.  We make inquiries about God.  We read books about God.  We get into late-night bull sessions about God.  We drop into church from time to time to see what is going on with God.  We indulge in an occasional sunset or symphony to cultivate a feeling of reverence about God.

But that is not the reality of our lives with God.  Long before we ever got around to asking questions about God, God had been questioning us.  Long before we got interested in the subject of God, God subjected us to the most intensive and searching knowledge.  Before it ever crossed our minds that God might be important, God singled us out as important.  Before we were formed in the womb, God knew us.  We are known before we know.

This realization has a practical result: no longer do we run here and there, panicked and anxious, searching for the answers to life.  Our lives are not puzzles to be figured out.  Rather, we come to God, who knows us and reveals to us the truth of our lives.  The fundamental mistake is to begin with ourselves and not God.  God is the center from which all life develops.

“He looks at you with so much love”

Sr. Dorcee, belovedLeave a comment

“Live in peace and joy, my dear daughter.  Our Lord looks at you and he looks at you with so much love and compassion; and the weaker you are, the more his love for you grows warm and tender.  Never harbor thoughts which would go in reverse direction.  If these thought come and pester you, pay no heed to them; turn your mind away from them and cling to God with a humility that is bold and courageous.  Speak to him about his sacred and indescribable goodness which pours itself out on us, loving our small and week, poor and abject nature, despite all its infirmities.” (St. Francis de Sales)

“Blessing the darkness”?

Sr. Dorcee, belovedLeave a comment

We’re always questioning the darkness in our lives.  What good is it?  Why does God allow it?  Here are Ann Spangler’s thoughts:

Larry Crabb says that we find God only when we need him. Simple words, but true. It’s like looking for the light switch in a dark room. No one goes searching for it until the sunlight has gone. Similarly, darkness can impel our search for God.

Several years ago I met the last survivor pulled from the wreckage after the destruction of the World Trade Center in 2001. During our time together, Genelle Guzman-McMillan told me a story about flirting with faith but choosing to live without it. Then, on September 11, her world fell apart and she found herself in complete darkness, buried alive under a mountain of rubble

You can read the rest here.

He gave me a cowboy

Sr. Dorcee, belovedLeave a comment

A guest post today: (“You need some smile today.”)

It can happen so fast, the forgetting. I forget how to laugh, how to play. I forget who I truly am. I wake up not even needing the to do list I left on the counter the night before. It is etched in my mind and weighs on me like a mountain. There is so much that needs to be done. I simply cannot remember what is important anymore. The urgent has taken over the important. I blurt out questions to my husband as fast as they come into my mind. I begin to cry. I need help with this business thing I am trying to do.

Trying. To. Do.

I put in a load of laundry, make a few phone calls, and end up back in the kitchen thinking about that endless list when my phone chirps from my back pocket. It is a text from my husband. “You need some smile today. I’m going to saddle up Sam for you.” I didn’t even hear him leave the house. Glancing out the window, I can see him down at the barn tightening the girth around Sam’s fuzzy middle. A smile edges in slightly around my worried mouth. I exhale that breath I have been holding in all day.

Read the rest here.

The temptation of temptations

Sr. Dorcee, beloved1 Comment

“So go forth very bravely with perfect trust in the goodness of him who calls you to this holy task.  When has anyone ever hoped in the Lord and been disappointed?  Mistrust of your own powers is good as long as it is the groundwork of confidence in God’s power; but if you are ever in any way discouraged, anxious, sad, or melancholy I entreat you to cast this away as the temptation of temptations; and never allow your spirit to argue or reply in any way to any anxiety or downheartedness to which you may feel inclined.  Remember this simple truth which is beyond all doubt: God allows many difficulties to beset those who want to serve him but he never lets them sink beneath the burden as long as they trust in him.  This, in a few words, is a complete summary of what you most need: never under any pretext whatsoever to yield to the temptation of discouragement, not even on the plausible pretext of humility.”  (St. Francis de Sales)