I just turned 62 years old last week, and I must confess; I am a really slow learner.
All these years I thought I had a great relationship with God. I attended church on a regular basis. I had been involved in activities in my parish; having served on various committees over the years. I raised my children in the faith. Outwardly, I looked like a “good Christian”.
As many of you know, I have written quite a bit in my blogs about exploring my relationship with God… and yet, despite all that…I always felt there was some piece of the puzzle missing. Perhaps, I thought, it was just my humanity. As humans, how are we to understand God? We are limited in our ability to understand the universe, and the One who created it.
A few years ago, it came to me. My pride was getting in the way of my relationship with God. Up to that point, every opportunity that God gave me to understand Him better…opportunities where I just had to shut up, and listen…I chose to speak over God.
And when I did, I kept falling short in goals I had for myself. Why? It certainly wasn’t from a lack of effort. It was my ego…I wanted to have everything “my way”.
Frustration, anger, resentment was starting to build in me. Sometimes, God must have felt about me the same way I used to feel about my children when they were growing up. You observe your children do something, and you say to yourself, “Why won’t they, just once, listen to me? This isn’t my first rodeo…I have been down this road a million times…why can’t they take my advice?”
Then one day, feeling like an anxious rat …I just sat down in front of another brick wall I had just run into in the maze I had made of my life, and said, “God, I give up…you won! I am so tired of trying to do it on my own! I finally realize I really, really need you!”
I need God Monday through Saturday, not just on Sunday.
You know what is amazing about God? He doesn’t tell you He told you so. He doesn’t rub it in. God searches until He finds you in that little maze you created for yourself, He picks you up, dusts you off, and then holds your hand and leads you down the tricky corridors of life.
When you turn it all over to God, life becomes less frustrating. Obstacles become less severe. People you spent a lifetime looking for, suddenly start to appear.
In my early years, I could never imagine confessing publically to what I just wrote. It would have seemed so weak. I would have been uncomfortable hearing this message from others.
You hope that with age, comes wisdom. You can only beat your head against a wall so many times before you wise-up, and ask for God's help.
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