Psalms 23:1-6

 Psalm 23:6 Only goodness and love will pursue me all the days of my life; I will dwell in the house of the Lord for years to come.

Our salvation depends on God. We can not obtain our own salvation. It is not just through praying, or just through works. It takes our faith, depending on God, fully entrusting in God to strengthen our hearts and soul. So why should we spend our life struggling, trying to be better on our own? We need to rely on God and find rest in him. He will guide us down the right path. He is our shepherd, and will bring us to green grass and safe waters. If we can allow ourselves to become dependent on God, as this verse says, goodness and love will find us. 

We need to let ourselves delight in our Lord. We need to let ourselves draw near to him. We need to open ourselves to his true desires for us. We need to let ourselves rest in him. We need to understand that he is truly in control. As this crazy year draws to an end, we should look back and see how we tried to use these last few weeks to become closer to God as a message. Did I put down the phone? Did I turn off the TV? Did I allow peace into my home? If you can’t answer yes, there is still hope! What comes next? Advent! As we begin to prepare for the celebration of Jesus’s birth, I challenge you to download a prayer app. And move it on your front screen, rearrange your icons for it to be where FaceBook was. That way, when you are trying to check your FB updates, you will hit the prayer app instead. Or you will have to willingly avoid the prayer app to purposefully open FB (or whatever other social media site). Give it a try. Open your heart to hearing more of God’s word throughout the day. Dwell in the house of the Lord. 

Overburdened? (Matthew 11:28-30)

 Matthew 11:28-30 Come to me, all you who labor and are burdened, and I will give you rest. Take my yoke upon you and learn from me, for I am meek and humble of heart; and you will find rest in yourselves. For my yoke is easy, my burden light. 

I actually referenced this quote on Monday. When the Bible was written, those who labored and burdened referred to those who were burned by the law as explained by the scribes and Pharisees. In the place of the yoke of their law, which was complicated and had many interpretations, Jesus was inviting the burdened to take the yoke of obedience to his word, under which they would find rest. 

Still to this day, nearly 2000 years later, these words are so powerful. “Come to me.” Jesus is calling me; he is calling you. Again, I think, who am I that he should want to call me to be near to him? Well, I am (we ALL are) God’s child. He made me. He did not make a mistake when he made me. He made me for a purpose. So why wouldn’t he want to call me to be closer to him? Same question for you. God made YOU. There was no mistake in your creation. So why wouldn’t he call his children to come to him?

Parents want to give rest to their children. They want to take burdens off of their children. They want their children to come rest in their lap. My 63 year old mother still tries to take things up for me, so I may have rest. My 86 year old grandmother still tries to be strong to give rest to her grown children. This is God’s intention also. Jesus is telling us to stop trying to figure out the world and the interpretations the world makes, and to allow him to be in control. If you read literally into the verse, he wants you to remove the over bearing yoke (as if we were an ox) of the world’s cart we are trying to pull, and put on his yoke as it is light. He wants us to let him be the driver of the cart, and we stop trying to pull it on our own. His cart is light, his yoke easy. 

We cannot live self-sufficiently. We cannot attempt to make our way through life alone. We were not created to be that way. Some people have chosen to make their own path and struggle alone, like the prodigal son. They just haven’t realized there is something to run back to. In our daily prayers, these are the people we should also pray for; those who don’t know there is a better way. In our day to day life, our”labors” are burdens we put upon ourselves. Things we don’t ask for help for, for whatever reason. We think we can manage alone, we don’t want to bother others. We are trying to prove something. On top of that, “burdened” is all the things others put on us. Jesus is calling us to let him take those burdens for us, and offers us an easier way.

This is not to say that we are to push off our work and tasks,  it to see that if we lean on God, our burdens will become lighter. When we realize we are not alone, it won’t feel as hard. God has put people in our lives to help us along the way. People we don’t realize are here for that special reason. Let Jesus bear your burden’s with you. Bring them to his feet. Rest in him.

Become unmovable (Isaiah 26:3-12)

 Isaiah 26:3 A nation of firm purpose you keep in peace; in peace, for its trust in you. (NAB St. Joseph Edition)

New International Version
You will keep in perfect peace those whose minds are steadfast, because they trust in you.

New Living Translation
You will keep in perfect peace all who trust in you, all whose thoughts are fixed on you!

English Standard Version
You keep him in perfect peace whose mind is stayed on you, because he trusts in you.

Holman Christian Standard Bible
You will keep the mind that is dependent on You in perfect peace, for it is trusting in You. 

International Standard Version
You will keep perfectly peaceful the one whose mind remains focused on you, because he remains in you.

I wanted to share a few different Bible versions of this same verse. They all mean the same thing, but the slightly different wordings help capture the bigger picture. In my Catholic Bible, it is written “a nation” of firm purpose, the purpose being keeping the truth of God, referring to the people as a whole. Not just a single person. This caught my attention compared to other versions after this weekend’s gospel reading. Sunday was the Solemnity of our Lord Jesus Christ, King of the Universe, and the gospel reading was Matthew 25, where Jesus said “ When the Son of Man comes in His glory, and all the angels with Him, He will sit upon His glorious throne, and all the nations will be assembled before Him. And He will separate them one from another, as a shepherd separates the sheep from the goats. He will place the sheep on His right and the goats on His left.” The gospel goes on to tell us that Jesus said those who {take care ] ‘of the least of mine do so for me.’ Jesus said as a nation, we would be put either on his right or his left. Then as a nation, we need to learn to depend on him more. Or we may be the goats when Jesus returns. 

Back to the scripture at hand. The words are right here in these verses are about how to depend on God. Our minds need to be steadfast on God our thoughts fixed on him. Our minds need to remain focused on God. Our hearts need to be unmovable, our thoughts sound. To be unmovable is to set our minds on things above, not things of the earth. It means to be a fortress for God, so that when something bad happens around us, we won’t crumble. But you can’t be a solid force with a weak foundation.  

It might sound difficult to keep our minds on God throughout the day, but it isn’t as hard as we make it out it to be. If we can easily allow other thoughts to cross our mind, we can just as easily allow God to. If we can easily pull up our phones and scroll through FB or Twitter or even the news, we can just as easily have a Bible app and scroll through it. Or a prayer app. It’s just as easy to turn to God as it is to turn away from him. It’s a conscious choice we make throughout the day. If we can learn to tune in to God instead of social media or the wreckage of the world around us, we can learn to hear him and depend on him. All we need is to put our trust in God. Let him fill your heart. Let him fill your mind. See what this change can open for your life. Become unmovable.

Prepare your heart, not just your home (Luke 10:38-42)

Luke 10:41-42 The Lord said to her in reply, “Martha, Martha, you are anxious and worried about many things. There is need of only one thing.”

Life is so busy. No matter what your vocation, life is busy. No matter if you work outside of the home, inside the home, or mind the home, life is busy. Kids, no kids, grandkids, doesn’t matter. Life is busy. There is always something to do. Or so it seems. It is so easy to see myself in Martha’s spot, anxious about things to do, and not being able to sit down and delight in the Lord. Honestly, I don’t know if my house could be prepared enough for Jesus to enter it. But you know what, he probably doesn’t care if our house is prepared, but rather is our heart prepared. 

In Mass before we go up to receive communion, we say, “Lord, I am not worthy that you should enter under my roof, but only say the word and my soul shall be healed.” In Matthew chapter 8, the centurion said to Jesus that his home was not worth, but Jesus could say a word the man’s servant to be healed. We use the scripture to prepare our minds for receiving communions. We want our heart and souls to house Jesus, so we need to prepare it. We are fully aware that we are not worthy compared to God’s standards, but he only need say a word and our soul can be healed. 

With all the business of life, and serving others’ needs, we need to make sure we are taking the time to fill the need of our soul. We need to be able to be ready to put it all down and sit at Jesus feet and rest. Christmas is the celebration of his birth. When we ready ourselves for a baby’s birth, we prepare with baby showers, gathering things the baby and mom might need, preparing food for after delivery, taking time to prepare our minds for the new baby. Why should preparing for celebrating Jesus’s birth be any different? 

As Christmas approaches, use Advent as it truly is meant to be: a time to prepare. Begin by taking time daily to stop and sit at Jesus feet. Prepare for the feast of celebrating the birth of our savior, not just a holiday to spend with family and friends. Don’t overwhelm yourself in the parties and gift buying for others. Decoding your house is nice, but in that decorating, is it for yourself or the Lord? How are you decorating your heart? In that preparation, find rest so you can truly enjoy what the season is supposed to be about: the birth of our king. 

Find your rest (Philippians 4:4-9)

 Philippians 4:7 The peace of God that surpasses all understanding will guard your hearts and minds in Jesus Christ. 

Rest is not an option for all living things. We can try to stay away and keep going, but eventually our bodies will collapse. It may be after a few days, but it will happen. Even God rested on the 7th day.  Just as our bodies need rest, so do our souls. Right now, with everything going on in the world, our hearts and minds might be overwhelmed with information overload. And trying to process all the information can become very wearisome. For some of, information overload may a part of daily work, so this is nothing new. I remember a few years ago at a previous job, coming home weary daily from work. What I had learned from that day’s caseload would definitely not let me rest. I wish I had been in a closer relationship with God then to know how to let go of things and truly give my burden to him.

God wants us to find rest. He wants to relieve us of these burdens. He wants us to know he is willing to guard our hearts and minds. What does rest sound like to you? My thought goes toward a nice hot bath, bubbles, soft music, a glass of wine maybe. Or watching a TV show in your comfy pajamas with no one bothering you. Finding rest can be hard for some people. New moms don’t always have an extra 10 minutes for a shower much less 30 to relax in a hot bathtub with bubbles and candles. When my husband was at school or working late, there were many showers with the baby in her seat right outside my shower. Definitely no rest in that. I only get to watch TV by myself if I wake up at 5:00 in the morning and get my Bible study and work out done, or do it at 8:30 at night after the kids go to bed. I’m saying these things to show that I know sometimes finding rest is hard. We are all in different phases of life with different responsibilities. This is not a one size fits all thing. 

For some of us, if it’s hard to find actual time to rest physically, it’s hard to find times to rest spiritually. But Jesus wants us to come to him with our burdens. He wants us to take his yoke, because it is light. He wants us to know he is in control. So instead of trying to pull our cart ourselves in a road we have never been, let him be the driver. I have found that once I made time for God, it became easier to find rest. And I mean spiritual rest. With three kids I may not have physical rest until they are adults :-) And it is not just because I am a stay at home mom with no real job to go to. I have heard that thrown at me before. But that’s not a box I want to argue today. The more we desire to be closer to God, the easier it will be to see we do have time to rest in him. And once we begin that journey, we will find knots in our lives start to undo with his help, and we can feel more relaxed. 

It does take a lot of faith to depend on God. But it sure does make life seem a little bit smoother having him be the driver in this crazy world. Draw near to God and find rest in him. 

Psalm 37:4-9

 Psalm 37:7 Be still before the Lord; await for God. Do not be provoked by the prosperous, nor by malicious schemers. (NABRE)

Psalm 37:7 Be still before the Lord and wait patiently for him; do not fret when people succeed in their ways, when they carry out their wicked schemes. (NIV)

This is one of the toughest things to overcome in our lives. We see others succeed and it often makes us jealous. It might be easy to be happy to see someone who has struggled all their life and come to success honestly. But when it is someone who has lied or cheated their way to the top, it is frustrating. I’ve often heard, “I have worked so hard, and they just came in and took that job.” I have also heard, “why is it that everyone else seems to be better off than me?”

It is so easy to look around and see others as better off. It’s easy to look past our own blessings and be jealous, envious of others. Envy is a sin. That’s why it is easy to find envy. Satan lays things out for us to see all the time, just to see how we will react. So and so down the street (or at work, or in your family, or in the next state, etc) lied about this and they ended up with that great new _________. 

We read right here in black and white “DO NOT BE PROVOKED/ DO NOT FRET” when people succeed in their ways. They will be cut off from the promises of God. Instead we are told to “find your delight in the Lord” and “commit your way to the Lord.” Why should we when they don’t? Because if we do, God will give us the desire’s of our heart and act in our favor. Because as Christians we are called to trust in God, to act with morals and proper ethics. We know what success we have waiting for us. Even if we never see that success on this earth, we will have eternal success.  That, my friend, is the best news.

So let that neighbor or coworker have the position or the raise or whatever he may have “taken” from you. God sees what you do. God knows how hard you work and how faithful you are. Remember, what we do in silence, he sees as will repay. He also sees the lies and cheating they do in silence. And they will get their repayment one day as well. 

Light your candle, play the music. Turn your heart to God. Rejoice in him always and pray without ceasing. You are bigger than the evil ways of this world. Peace be with you today. 

Rejoice always (1 Thessalonians 5:12-24)

1 Thessalonians 5:16-18 Rejoice always. Pray without ceasing. In all circumstances give thanks, for this is the will of God for you in Christ Jesus. 

When we have earthly goals we are trying to achieve, and we fail to achieve them, we become disappointed. Even in not achieving spiritual goals, we can become disappointed. But here, we are told to rejoice always. It’s weird to think that everything deserves rejoicing, but God is not made of circumstances. He isn’t found here and there, in only certain times. God is above that. God is everywhere and in all things. He is in good times and bad, and so for that, we need to rejoice always. Our lives will have good days and bad days. If our hearts are filled with spiritual desire, we can know God is there in those good and bad days. Our circumstances in life will change. But God NEVER changes. 

I read something today about praying without ceasing and want to share it with you. When you first read, “‘pray without ceasing,” do you think of a time you can’t pray? “Well, I can’t pray during....” But we can pray anywhere and everywhere! We don’t have to pray using our voices out loud; we can pray in our head. We do not have to be able to get on our knees; we can pray sitting, standing, laying down. We do not have to be in a church to pray; we can pray at any location we are. There is not a specific time relegated to prayer. Remember you can pray to yourself, which can happen at any time of day! With all this in mind, we are never in a place we could NOT pray. 

It is God’s will that we rejoice always, pray without ceasing, and give thanks in everything. It isn’t easy, but since it is God’s will, we can do it. It should be our desire to please God and to do his will. Did you light your candle today?