ponderUpon...

"When Samuel hears God's call, he says, "Speak, for your servant is listening" (1 Sm 3:10). This is the true spirit of prayer; not, "Listen, Lord, your servant is speaking!" -Father Emmerich Vogt, O.P. I actually got a good laugh out of that last part, "Listen, Lord, your servant is speaking!" So that's why I decided to share it with y'all today. There is a good message to be found in it though. When we pray we shouldn't play the part of the All Mine Bunny but should listen to the Father because His plans & answers for us are & will be more beneficial than our own. I'm not saying we shouldn't bring our needs to God but we should approach prayer in a humble spirit and be willing to let God take care of us, not tell Him how to take care of us. Pray that God shows you how He can improve the present moment through you dear friends.

As it is written, "the kingdom of God is within you" (Luke 17:21). I find this very interesting and very deep at the same time. What did Jesus mean when he said this? Our body's live in this world. Our hearts & minds can live in the Kingdom, the kingdom within. So I see them working in harmony. If we are living in the Kingdom and living in this world we can do great things through the Holy Spirit who lives in the Kingdom with us. Let me elaborate. All our actions good or bad, our sin, our thoughts all begin in the mind & the heart. If we have the Kingdom of God living within us then God's great plans for our lives give birth to great thoughts and those great thoughts give birth to great actions and those great actions give birth to great things God does through us all shining His light upon the earth but all starting from within. Regnum caelo intra allows us to improve the present moment, dear brothers and sisters. I pray you see the kingdom of Heaven around y...

"There is a temptation to see Lent as a time of self-improvement, during which my focus is on myself. However, my sin shows me that my hope can never be in myself. My only hope is that someone save me. Saint Paul says: "I do not do the good I want, but I do the evil I do not want...Miserable one that I am! Who will deliver me from this mortal body? Thanks be to God through Jesus Christ our Lord" (Rom 7:19, 24-24). Let our focus be not on ourselves, but on Jesus. Let us turn toward Jesus Christ and beg for a renewed experience of his presence. He is the one who saves me from my miserable condition; it is his merciful gaze which awakens and transforms me." -Father Richard Veras. I could not have put it better myself. That is why I decided to share it with you, my dear readers. Lent is most definitely not about ourselves. Remember Galatians 2:20 I talked about in a previous article. It is about allowing Jesus to increase in our lives and us decreasing. I saw a quote to...

I told you before that we love you so much we would live or die with you. I feel very sure of you and am very proud of you. You give me much comfort, and in all of our troubles I have great joy. (2 Corinthians 7:3, 4) This verse is so beautiful and reassuring. It is a verse that we all should apply to our daily lives in treating and thinking of other people. But for now I want to focus on the last part where Paul says, "and in all our troubles I have great joy." I think of that last part whenever I have troubles or in all honesty, just flat out tired and worn out from the day or week. It reminds me even though I'm tired or troubled and want to be a crabby person I really have nothing to complain about but should have joy and thankfulness instead. Paul exhibits this joy by living his life for God. He had much to complain about for his troubles were many, more than we have, yet he still had joy and didn't complain (I'm sure he complained sometimes like all humans d...

Your pride has fooled you, you who live in the hollow places of the cliff. Your home is up high, you who say to yourself, ‘No one can bring me down to the ground.’ Even if you fly high like the eagle and make your nest among the stars, I will bring you down from there,” says the Lord. (Obadiah 1:3, 4) These two verses serve as one of the best examples to not become too arrogant. God is the giver of all things. We deceive ourselves in believing all that we have & do is of our own power. Remember Job said "The Lord gives and the Lords takes away. (Job 1:21) Job knew best about things being taken away. Now practically all that Job had wasn't taken away because he was arrogant. It was taken away to show the faithfulness of God's servant. All through this process Job stayed humble and praised the Lord. We should also not be arrogant about our appearances. Thomas a Kempis wrote in his book,  The Imitation of Christ,  don't take too much pride in your appearances to the...

The Good, The Bad, and the Ugly is a movie about three different people. One is good, one is bad, and one is ugly. These character traits apply to us in certain ways. In fact we can be all three. Our sin is ugly, our actions can be bad, but...through Jesus Christ we can be good. Jesus said why do you call me good? Only God is truly good. (Mark 10:18) Now Jesus didn't mean no one can be good, he meant the Father is good all the time -notice the keyword truly- where us as human beings are fickle in our actions. So how can we be good and avoid those other two as often as possible? (I'm not saying "bad" and "ugly" will always be avoided, I believe they can be, but since we're human and rely on ourselves sometimes and not the Father they won't always be avoided.) Jesus told us he would send The Helper to..well...help us. Help us in our times of trial and to always be with us in our hearts. The Scriptures say I will hide his word in my heart  that I might ...

Dear friends, I write to you on the eve of Lent. This journey we are about to embark on together will, I hope, strengthen us in our lives, deepen us in thought, and empower us in our love for one another, not just in our actions but most assuredly in our hearts. I am very excited for this season of Lent and I hope you are as well. Follow my blog for more of my thoughts and what I am learning through this season of Lent. Always remember...how will you improve the present moment?