It sucked for real! So, I went about creating a new and different me and it seemed to be working just fine – on the outside – for a while.Īfter my husband and I were married I became a card-carrying member of the Catholic Church. I was convinced I was screaming into an echo chamber when I complained about the raw deal life handed me. I mean, up to that point he didn’t seem to pay any mind to me or my trials. You see, I always felt the need for certitude about something, anything, in my messed up, confused, and broken life, but I wasn’t sure about trusting that to God. Sooooo, let me get all my “stuff” out there now and pray for that clean slate God is so good at freely offering us. God’s sacrificial love is meant for all, and I am to be an instrument of that love, or my faith response is inadequate.Ĭonfession time! For as long as I can remember, I have wanted to be an “instrument” of God’s love on my own terms, just like the disciples, and I blew it – big time – just like they did! BUT, I’m still breathing so I still have time for a course correction. Fear clings to the old self, refuses to relinquish control, and ties the hands of the Spirit. If fear holds us back, it is grounded in the denial of who we really are. That is Good News! And we have a mandate to take that Good News into the world. How does that correlate with the fact that we were made in the image of God? It doesn’t.Īs Christians we too were created anew by the resurrection and empowered by the Holy Spirit. That reality released within them an unshakable love, beyond their human capacity.Ĭan we possibly grasp the implications of that love in our own lives? In a world laden with mistrust and fear, we zealously take care of “number one”. Through his resurrection, they are also made a new creation by the power of the Holy Spirit. There was now no denying that what they witnessed they were compelled to share with a lost and hurting world.įor the disciples, transformation came through their realization that this Jesus, standing before them, the same human person they knew before, now reveals his divinity.
(Just a little reminder here: the women stayed! You know that, right? Power to the women!) Anyway, the manly men finally came out of hiding and ran head-long into Jesus transfigured. “Nuh uh, I ain’t goin’ up there!”īefore Jesus’ crucifixion all of his wishy-washy disciples ran away in fear of meeting the same fate.
#Aha moment gif free#
I can’t help but wonder if that’s why we, like the Israelites, settle at the foot of the mountain in a comfortable, risk free faith. Though that love is given freely, it calls for a response from us. What God revealed by the resurrection was his radically gratuitous love for his Son, for the disciples, and for us. What they witnessed in Jesus’ Passion and death was his total self-giving to his Father. It was something they could control by their actions. Their frame of reference for God’s love was within the realm of deserving and undeserving. Why? Their desire to change was ever frustrated by their inability to know God as Jesus knew him. The problem was that his disciples wanted to follow him on their own terms. He healed the sick, turned unbelieving hearts toward God, and challenged those who believed they held the ultimate power. He dared to love those cast aside by society. For three years Jesus walked with and taught his disciples.