When I spoke about “surrendering to God” in my prayers, I thought it was an act of giving up, the raising of the white flag. For the longest time, I thought it meant just turning my back, not caring anymore and just letting God do the works.
Surrendering to God, I saw as merely associated with problems, an act of unburdening that could relieve you of the stress, the pain, the anxiety – sort of a magical power hoping that the act of surrender could take all these away. At church, I often witness the loudest “Amen” when there is mention of surrendering our financial woes to God, as if it could be the end to our financial struggles. I had often “surrendered” my personal struggles and my inconsistent prayer life, to God, too.
Yet, it did not work for me. I knew that I got it all wrong because this kind of surrender has led me nowhere. The way my life is tracking, was pointing to apathy, a lack of progress. I felt I was going back, true to what I thought surrender was – giving up.
Until I discovered Fr. Mike Schmitz’s YouTube clip, “What surrender really looks like”. This shattered all my preconceptions.
For one, not only do we surrender problems and our pains. It often is the case though that we remember God in our prayers, in our most trying times. But how about surrendering our successes? Surrendering our successes means allowing God to use us for the good of others. That means granting God the “access to our lives”. Surrender means asking God, “What do you want me to do with my successes, my treasures?”.
Yes, surrendering requires action.
As for our pain, yes, we do surrender them but don’t expect that this could magically go away. Surrendering our pain means, allowing God to access our heart and letting the Mind of God, rule us. What does God want me to do in this situation?
Even in moments when we feel it is a dead end, we surrender in His wisdom. God knows when it is the end. He also knows every fresh start. We just need to entrust to Him EVERYTHING.
The world teaches you to fear. The Holy Spirit whispers in your ear and says otherwise; to fear not.
Being trapped in fear and anxiety is no joke and I feel like the world we now live in is not helping alleviate our state of fear. The world makes us obsess and fear about being left behind in practically everything. New models of phone. New episodes of our favourite series. Career. Marriage.
The world makes you think something is lacking in you and gives you the feeling of missing out. It drives you to spend minutes and even hours googling solution for receding hairline. Every morning, the first thing I have to check is my phone fearing I might miss a matter-of-life-and-death message. Social media drives you to think that your worth is measured up by the likes on your feed.
And yet succumbing to the world still makes you fear. It never seems to fill you, in fact it makes you even crave for more. Therefore, the world is not the solution to our fear, our anxiety and our depression.
Decluttering ourselves of all the things that world has made us think as important could prove really hard but there is always the omnipresent Spirit we can invoke for help. It guides us to see beyond the world. The graces that the Spirit will make us believe in, are revealed as different possibilities from re-discovering our love of reading and exercise to spending more time with our loved ones.
2 Timothy 1:7 For God gave us a spirit not of fear but of power and love and self-control.
How did you not flinch when it was too painful? When you fell while carrying the weight of the world, how did you rise up again? How far ahead did you see when your present was too agonizing? How far back did you have to look to remember that you were everything but a criminal?
How did you not break when they shattered you? When rebuked, how did you not hate? How long did it take you to forgive? A minute? A day?
How had you chosen pain over glory? Dying over living? How were you not reminded of ruthlessness by those scars, that instead of waging chaos you uttered “peace be with you”? How did you do it?
I joined FB just few months ago. I refused to have one, most of my entire adult life. I thought it was rife with negativity and I thought there would be triggers there for me. Not good for my mental wellbeing but somehow thanks to the “snooze” option my wife taught me. That way I could avoid people posting messages of hate, sexism, racism and bullying. Just as there are positive messages out there, it is also replete with messages that could disturb your peace.
Peace is so hard to come by of late. Wars are being waged everywhere ranging from small to large scale and everything in between. Keeping an ear to the ground of Philippine election and politics has piqued my mental wellbeing recently.
Too bad that it is just few weeks from Easter Sunday when we were reminded of the powerful words Jesus spoke; “Peace be with you”. Today I thought it is time to invite peace again in my life. In our lives.
Know when to give up. Maybe the story has to end at some point. Maybe the wheels have to stop turning and start recharging. Maybe the fight is not worth it anymore. The time to stop is when you become exhausted, unproductive, vengeful, angered, unnerved, confused. Perhaps the best recourse is to “accept the things you cannot change (serenity prayer)”.
Forgive and ask for forgiveness. When others hurt us or when we hurt others, that is when it becomes most difficult. That is when you feel heavy. You sweat during those sleepless nights. But when we forgive or ask for forgiveness, it becomes lighter on our shoulder.
Years ago when I challenged a 4 year old boy into capturing his thoughts into drawing, I asked “What does peace look like?”I was really impressed with what I witnessed – a love heart drawn on paper. When I asked, “What does war look like?”. He started to draw vigorously, chaotic lines. I knew it was really war that he drew because of his “angry” body movements while he drew.
It is time to choose that tidy love heart of peace rather than the angry lines of war. It is time to remember and live what Jesus said after His resurrection, “Peace be with you”.
What is the opposite of pride? I thought it’s humility but the sharing of a speaker in a weekend retreat I attended had me reconsider my answer. He thought that it’s love.
Not since watching the film “Seven” have I given the seven deadly sins a good stare. I did agree with the speaker that love is the opposite of pride (Proverbs 16:5 – “arrogant in heart”). But I am also convinced that, so are gluttony (Philippians 3:19 -“their god is their belly”; envy (Proverbs 14:30 – the one the “makes the bones rot”); sloth ( Proverbs 19:15 – “idle person”); wrath (Matthew 26:52 – those “who take the sword”); greed (1 Timothy 6:10 – “love of money”) and lust (1 Corinthians 6:18 – “sexual immorality”).
Love’s OTHER-centeredness, no doubt, opposes the seven deadly sins’ SELF-centeredness.
In my life, I have wondered how I have fought a sinful thought.
First is by recognising these sins on their onset. These sins could sometimes blend into our skin slowly, cunningly and quite subtly. We watch out for signs of these sins and nip it in the bud before we get consumed by them.
I would call these early signs my moments of unease. Guilt-ridden urge. Sweating. Racing heartbeat. Feeling a “bit sad”. A mind peppered with the “what if’s”. Fantasizing and daydreaming. Cravings. Mindless scrolling on the phone. Restless feet. Indecisiveness. Aimless pressing of the TV remote control. Stressful eating. My signs could go on and based on my history, these underlie these sins. Before any of these signs spiral out of control, I try to nip it in the bud. But how?
Pray and in praying, each word really matters. Fr. Andrew Ricci has always suggested to NAME IT in our prayer. It does not have to be grand, thought-out well or grammatically correct. It just needs to be flowing, honest and specific. God I am feeling the urge to forgo again an opportunity. God I am feeling lazy today and I am not being productive. God, I am feeling the urge to stay home, lie on the couch, miss church and become slothful. God, I am being stuck in my thoughts and my cravings. You know that this could lead me to excess and become a glutton. God, I am feeling uneasy right now that I don’t have what my neighbour has. This is envy and it is not ok. Deliver me from envy and help me realise that what I have is enough. God, I don’t really understand why I am feeling annoyed right now. Help me through my feelings before it boils over and becomes anger. Prayer at its most specific could help win against the enemy.
In early childhood education, there is what is called dispositions or habits of the mind. If we train ourselves to resort to prayer every time we are challenged by sinful thoughts, then the mind becomes a very powerful tool which could stomp sins on their head.
Since love is the opposite of the seven deadly sins then it is only love that can vanquish them. When you love, then there is the “other” to think about; the “other” that we see beyond the “self”.
Giving to others for example, vanquishes greed. The law of marginal utility tells us that no matter how much material things we acquire, we will never ever be satisfied. Greed just gets us caught in the cycle of buying things that will never be as satisfying as when it is new but being generous? This empties us and allows us to see that others’ happiness could be truly gratifying.
When I slack, feel unmotivated and slothful, I think of the “other” who might benefit if I look ahead and soldier on; perhaps the children I teach who could learn from my enthusiasm or my family whom I could build great memories with. Lying on the couch all day is not what I would consider loving.
Beating the seven deadly sins today does not mean we have slayed them for good. Sinful thoughts are here to stay. A sinful thought is that unwanted visitor always wanting to hang out with us at home, at work or even at church. It could stare right at us through our TV screens. But remember that God is also here to stay; His goodness endures forever. God also loves to hang out with us in every corner of our home, at work and certainly He is alive and longs for us, at church. He is ready to meet us at each moment we are tested.
For God gave us a spirit not of fear but of power and love and self-control.
If I were to pick one from the fruits of the Holy Spirit right now, I’d choose self-control.
Now it is becoming more often when we feel always being on the edge of an outburst. Is the world to blame or have we become overly sensitive, fatigued and too opinionated? Patience thins when plans go amiss. And almost everyone seem to have some form of addiction. Substance. Sex. Gaming. Netflix. Chocolate. Food. Sleeping. Gambling. You name it.
The world outside our body, mind and spirit, it seems, is ready to rule us. Time to learn self-control.
Self-control for some reason reminds me of self-regulation in children. It is not a stroke of good luck that children learn about it; it takes great mentoring, coaching, role modelling or environment setting to encourage young children to be in control of BIG emotions such as frustration, worry, anger, sadness. These could be a lot to take for a young child but is not entirely impossible to learn self-control. Let us not completely rule out our own ability to learn about it, as well.
But as a Christian, what I aim for is self-control gifted by the Holy Spirit. Nope, it is not merely being in control of my mind, body and BIG emotions but achieving a state in which I allow God to have power over me, where my actions and decisions seems to be made for me, by God.
Self-control gifted by the Holy Spirit is not silence. We could appear really serene on the outside but inside us could be brewing anger and chaos. Growing up, I did not have models of self-control. Everyone around me seemed to explode. It was utterly difficult to learn healthy self-control. For most part of my life, silence was my resort – a padded resilience, bottled negativity and some kind of empty “self-control”. It would surface in my later life as depression.
At some stage in our lives, we have to unlearn old habits and learn new ways. For our sake and sake of our family and children. I thought true self-control, the one gifted by the Holy Spirit, is the one I needed to learn. Because, I have learned the hard way that fake self-control won’t work.
First some practical steps. Prepare the mind for reality of problems.
Being a teacher here in New Zealand, we encourage children to problem-solve. Problems are vital to children’s learning. For example, the play environment I would set up for children would always be challenging and riddled with problems. The “troll bridge” does not have to be still and sturdy; it must be wobbly and problematic. That is how children learn about balance. I believe children must experience falling for as long as they fall safely.
Problems, too, form a big part in how we, adults learn about self-control. We do not deny ourselves with the inevitability of glitches, of plans going awry, of unmet expectations, of problems, of imperfections. I am not always the type who would always look at the glass as half-full. It could also be half-empty. It is more realistic for me. If things do not go to plan, I don’t go ballistic anymore as I used to. For me, that is JUST the glass half-empty again but I know God is going to fill the other half of it. And I am totally at peace with it.
Secondly, think of the danger of lacking self-control.
One is guilt. I have never seen anybody feeling really peaceful after an outburst. God knows how I feel really guilty whenever I lose it with my own children. Once the beast in you has said your piece violently, the fragments of broken relationships would be hard to piece together. Guilt, together with its twin, regret, could visit you even in your dreams. It is gnawing.
The pitfalls of lacking self-control eventually became my hard “why’s”. Why did I want to learn self-control? For me, it is my children. I needed them to have a model of authentic self-control. There was suddenly a sense of urgency to protect their hearts and minds. Being the father of the house, I have that role to create a home not built upon shaky impulses but on consistent practice of letting go and letting God’s power take over.
Learning self-control is tough work. It is not a ray of light that shines upon us while we sit down. Yes, it also takes time to learn. Praying and talking to God often will set the ground for us. Fr. Andrew Ricci whose podcast I follow, always suggests, naming “it” whenever we pray. It is different for all of us. It could be self-control to help you turn away from being angered by the smallest things. It could be self-control from spending too much time watching Netflix. It could be turning away addiction to illicit sexual materials or drugs. We are called by the Holy Spirit to name it whatever it is and to cast it aside. Pray for self-control every single time no matter how long it takes.
Be ready to reap the fruits. The outcomes of self control gifted by the Holy Spirit is not of guilt, regret, emptiness and bitterness but of love, patience and peace. As we turn away from sinful addiction or bridled anger, we reap the grace of being one heart with God. But before any harvest, we need to work really hard sowing, watering, preparing the soil. It may not happen in an instant. In fact, it may be a cross to bear with confusion, hurt ego, sweaty palms, heart wildly beating. But soon all these will fade away and we reap the fruits that we deserve – that of love and peace in our hearts.
Yesterday was my forty-seventh birthday and it felt like my fiftieth was just around the corner. I made a very intentional, conscious, huge effort to count my blessings asif wanting to enforce a feeling of blessedness upon myself. It was such a big effort because as you know, reality and real life always happen.
As I was preparing for our church group’s bible study, I turned to Luke 6:20-26 (The sermon on the plain) which was the bible reading few Sundays ago. It was a bible study that we postponed then because, as you know life happened.
When I read that passage, it baffled me. Blessed those who are poor … and woe to those who are rich – what could this mean? I wished God would speak and explain to me all this. The passage demanded re-reading on my part. Still confused, I had to read on what some bible scholars think it means. This led me to another bible passage from Matthew 5:1-12 (The sermon on the mount) which has parallelisms with Luke’s “Sermon on the plain”.
My puzzlement about the passage’s meaning, I realised, stemmed from me thinking about what is of this world rather than what is of God. But as always, with prayer and study (research) come enlightenment.
“Blessed are the poor”, for example, is of the spirit and it is the acknowledgement that we are nothing without God; that we are wholly dependent on Him; and that He is our only life support.
Blessed are the meek for they shall inherit the earth. Like a beggar, we bend down in humility and as we get closer to Christ, living by His examples, we get farther away from our own foolish and self-centred ways.
Blessed those who mourn: they shall be comforted. If others and our own sins become our source of mourning, then God promises peace and comfort.
Blessed are we when we hunger, thirst and constantly seek justice. Blessed are we when we unceasingly progress in our faith and realise that other things like fame, riches or unfairly getting ahead of others, cannot ever fill us.
Blessed are those who are merciful; they shall have mercy shown them. People around us are in need of our mercy and compassion. There will be times when will be on that receiving, humbling end but we need not beg for others’ mercy and compassion. It will be given to us freely and lovingly as mercy is what we have sown to begin with.
Blessed are the pure in heart; for they shall see God. God sees our heart, too. He knows all our impurities or our desires to purify our hearts. He knows our sins or how we seek redemption. He knows when we hate or when we love. He knows when we let ourselves succumb to worldly pleasures or when we reject them. He knows our integrity or our inconsistencies. If we are pure in heart that is our thoughts are loving as much as our actions; then we will see God.
It will definitely happen when we will be rejected and outcast for believing and living this life as Christians. Persecution is a state of blessedness, too. Blessedness or the beatitudes in Matthew’s gospel, I have come to realise is a real game-changer. It is not the blessedness that we are wont to think. it is the kind of blessedness that we have chosen to live by in order for us to see the face of God, in this life or the next.
This is a question that could be borne out of disappointment, grief, depression or even mere boredom. Whichever it is, I do not welcome it. It nags and gets me into deep thought. Deep thinking, I have come to understand, tends to be more of a liability for me than an asset.
No matter how I tried, this question does pop up from time to time and I really have to grapple with it but now I have been learning and been very quick to reframe it in a way that would make me avoid the pit of futile deep thinking. WHAT MAKES LIFE, LIFE? – is a question that really sounds better in my head in that it provokes “doing” and “action” rather than just merely meaningless pondering.
So what makes life, life?
Make “ordinary” things “extra-ordinary” again.
Very often, these “ordinary” things are being made redundant by our life’s routines. Routine for me is such a killer. We have always had these “things” in our lives – talked with, played with, used, eaten, lived in or enjoyed. These have become such a part of our routine already that we have overlooked their importance. Getting your dream job may have heaped our “hallelujahs” then. I wonder if we are as grateful for it, now. We only realise how much our loved ones mean to us, once we lose them. In most days, they tend to be relegated to just being the “ordinary”. I remember crying when we bought our first house but now I am finding myself wishing it was bigger. These thoughts could all be counter-productive so the solution is to make these things that seemed “ordinary” now, “extra-ordinary” again. Bite an apple like it is the sweetest and juiciest apple you have ever tasted. Drive to work with zest like it is your first dream job. Hug your wife and children like you are never going to see them again. Live your life as if it were your last. Well, you know, it could really be your last. I am really fortunate to teach pre-school age children everyday. They seem to never lose the joy. They always remind me to see the spiritual sense in even the most mundane of things.
Always think and strive to learn and avoid meaningless pondering. Why your neighbours are better off than you are, why you couldn’t be in two places at the same time, why you think people are mean to you or to each other, why people unnecessarily honk their horns during traffic – seem to be pointless thoughts because it gets you nowhere other than to spiral down. Thinking and striving to learn, on the other hand, is one built on purpose and could be actualised into something of value. Recently, I came across quotes from Ralph Waldo Emerson which I have been reading over and over again. These are short but really meaningful and have great potentials to make me a better person. I have been constantly listening to Fr. Andrew Ricci’s podcast and have been enriched by his wisdom. Striving to learn new things is a start of greater things.
Act on your knowledge. Implement your plans. I spent my whole life wondering about the ‘what if’s” and the “what could’ve been’s”. I resolve to not waste another minute of my life focusing my energies on these, instead, to start to do, to act and venture into things I am most afraid of and in the process, add value to my life. What is the value of your plan if it remains a plan forever? At my kindergarten, we envision creating a community garden that could benefit our families. Sounds like a big vision but would not come into fruition if we do not attempt to start to work towards it. Whenever I gain new knowledge that deepens my Catholic faith for example, I share them with others hoping that it could impact on their lives as it continue to impact on mine. The home is a good starting point of sharing these. I make myself visible and available for other people and offering a life of service, as much as I can.
Always find time to connect with self, others and God through prayer. Prayer is a respite for the tired, an assurance for the weak, a celebration for the happy, a feast for the soul of the peaceful. Prayer can be all of these. We pray in all our seasons not only when we are in need. Prayer also transcends distance and time and allows us to be connected with the people we love. I have loved ones from the Philippines, USA, Canada, Middle East and Israel but I always feel that prayer still binds us together whenever I remember them in my prayers. Prayer binds me to God. It is always a wonderful place to quell fears, to heal, to feel love, to unburden myself and to remain faithfully connected with God’s promises.
What makes life, life, I learned, are overcoming yourself and getting past your past and your nagging meaningless thoughts. What makes life, life; is to start to put things together beginning with the little things and adding them all up to create a bigger picture of continuous learning, connecting and devoting to a life of prayer. That is the life worth living for with actions all done in the name of the Father, of the Son and of the Holy Spirit.
Luke 15:13 – “No one can serve two masters. Either you will hate the one or love the other, or you will be devoted to the one and despise the other. You cannot serve both God and money.”
I value my “family” but there were points in my life when my actions led me away from them.
I had some irrational obsessions years ago. Obsessing with fixing broken things at home or keeping the house insanely and perfectly tidy, was one of them. This came in a guise of “valuing family”.
Who doesn’t like a clean and tidy house for your family?I think we all do but for the longest time for me, it bordered on irrationality when even the tiniest things would keep my head in and would make me fly off the handle. I abhorred it when things at home would get broken or misplaced. I hated looking for lost things. That would be enough for me to have a fit. My feelings after exploding would be much, much worse.
Was it worse because of growing anger? Or was it worse because of guilt stemming from hurting the feelings of the people I love. Little things at home seemed really “big” enough to pull me and my family apart. I knew I needed help,
Never stray from your values. Work towards aligning your actions with your values. I came to realise this when I went through counselling for depression. People who suffer the feeling of inadequacy, worthlessness and depression, may have really admirable values in life like faith in God, family, friendship or diligence but our actions or inaction, like sinfulness, disloyalty, betrayal or sloth, could further lead us deeper down the pit.
What I found that I have always valued are faith in God and my love for family. I have always aimed to live by these in the past but was unsuccessful several times. I guess by not praying, I had not realized my faith. I guess by having a short temper over household matters, I had not been a good father or husband, either. Such was a mismatch of values and actions that tormented my soul.
My inaction, I knew, would only make matters worse. On the contrary, I learned later on that the more I spent meaningful time with my family and the more I pray and learn about God’s word; the closer I get to realise what really matters to me.
Now, I know enough that I value my faith and that, not praying or not learning about the bible, will only make me feel inadequate and more depressed. I still do struggle now but I know enough that I value and love my wife and my children, that petty household things must not feel big enough to overcome that love.
Appointed by God 