This is something I have especially realized from coaching. I always enjoyed winning more as a player, a coach, or a parent of a player. The tougher the contest, the more passionately I was involved in the game, the sweeter the victory, and alternatively the more emotionally wrenching the defeat.
After a win, just happiness, joy, congratulations. Not much reflection.
After a loss, especially as a coach, I analyze, and research, and try to understand how it happened, what weaknesses we had in our game plan relative to the opponent's; what could be improved in our practices to turn the weaknesses realized in the loss into strengths.
I wasn't the coach or the player or the parent in this election. My only job was to represent my faith, explain my positions and who I was supporting because of my beliefs, and then to pray fervently for the will of God to be done, that his favored candidates would be elected at local, state, and federal levels.
I didn't feel last night that this is what happened. It was more wrenching this defeat, because I was so passionate and so hopeful and had done what was in my power to do. What good is analyzing it going to do?
What I did learn again was how recuperative sleep can be. I didn't drink last night. I wanted to go to a movie but there wasn't anything worth watching. I just went to bed after finishing Story of A Soul. I had to force myself to read that. I was so completely fed up with drudge, foxnews . . . . my little crutches during this election season.
I am glad I did. The last thing I read was about St. Thérèse's dream where she has her head held in the hands of a deceased superior in her Carmelite order, and she is told that Jesus is very pleased with her, and with her little acts done with great love. What a saint!
Last week I was a little disappointed that the new pastor for our local Catholic parish confused St. Teresa of Avila with St. Thérèse of Lisieux. I love them both. We gave my younger daughter the middle name Therese in honor of both of these great saints, as well as Blessed Mother Teresa of Calcutta.
What did I learn from this defeat? I learned that my passions continue to get the better of me instead of God getting the better of me. I was praying after Mass this morning and realized that the magnitude of sorrow and irritability I had last night as the election went the way I had hoped it wouldn't, showed me how far I am from who I might be and hope to be . . . someone like St. Thérèse whose passion for Our Lord was so well channeled into actually loving him in her small acts. She wrote toward the end of her autobiography of how her soul was in peace and calm.
How different from my soul last night. Here I am in my middle years and still my only solace from the personal defeats of my obsessiveness over polls, candidates, issues, and election results is that the Holy Spirit continues to find ways to show me what my weakness and failings are.
I can resolve anew to seek first the Lord's Kingdom (Matthew 6:33) within me . . . not in a detached way as advocating a philosophy or an engraving on the back of my iPad (and it is), but as the way I live each day of my life.
I have so little self-discipline. That is a personal defeat. Knowing that self-control is a fruit of the Spirit seems to tell me that I am in dire need for a greater out-pouring of the Holy Spirit, or I am making the wrong choices with my free will that is impeding his action in my life, in transforming my heart, or it is a thorn that God permits for me to realize how much more I need his grace.
"My strength is made perfect in weakness," is what he told Paul in 2 Corinthians 12:9.
Just hoping Lord that you will give me the strength to follow where your Spirit leads and to please you. I do place all my trust in you.
Showing posts with label Matthew 6:33. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Matthew 6:33. Show all posts
Wednesday, November 7, 2012
Thursday, March 15, 2012
Inscribing an iPad3
Which very short Bible verse or portion of a Bible verse would you inscribe on an iPad 3? Yesterday it took me over an hour to pick one - I think it was an hour and 15 minutes. It was much easier to pick the color, memory, wi-fi over network, leather vs. vinyl, and the color of the cover. I am a techie, but I am a frugal techie. This is my first iPad. Yes I know it is a blessing to be able to buy one, and yes, I am thankful to God that I was able to buy one.
When I got to the inscription part, it was fairly quick jump to include a Bible verse. It was easy to fit my name and phone number on the first line. Using the second line to put my business name (LLC with one employee--me), which is very similar to my given name seemed redundant. Why not a verse?
First verse that entered my mind:
It was the perfect size. The notation would not fit of course, but it was the right size. Then I started thinking, it isn't enough. It doesn't say why to do everything with love.
So I started hitting the search prompts. My searches included:
- Best Bible verses
- Bible verse to inscribe on iPad
- Jesus's favorite Bible verses
- Praise Jesus Bible verses
I was praying when I did this, "Holy Spirit, which verse do you want? Jesus which verse do you want me to use?"
All the searches pretty much gave the same few websites. One link was to a Yahoo question "Which Bible Verse should I use in a tattoo?" Of course that person ironically kept getting quoted Leviticus 19:28 to not get a tattoo, among other verses. Personally I prefer to inscribe my iPad over my arm, but I think if someone is going to get a tattoo, why not use that skin art to witness? It isn't like the people quoting that verse to this person were also not eating bacon as prohibited in Leviticus 11:7-8 and several other places in Leviticus. Of course Peter's dream in Acts 10:9-19 gives us license for the meat, but not sure about the tattoo. It didn't come up in the dream . . . seems like really small, teeny, tiny, potatoes though.
John 3:16 is the most frequent hit, and of course I LOVE that verse. As Fr. John Bartunek explains in this meditation that was sent to me twice by the Catholic Spiritual Direction website. I am not sure if it was an intelligent emailing routine that sent another email because I didn't take the link, or if it was the Holy Spirit, or you know, a Holy Spirit inspired email campaign programmer? My favorite quote from this meditation that I used when I shared it on Facebook,
"In this conversation with Nicodemus, Jesus lays bare the heart of God."
It occurred to me, while John 3:16 is great, and used enough that I didn't need to pick it, the verse should be another one that was spoken by Jesus, a red-letter verse. That narrowed it down to the Gospels and Revelation as the source books.
I ended up selecting "Seek first the Kingdom of God" a portion of Matthew 6:33:
Seek ye first the kingdom of God and his righteousness, and all these things shall be added unto you.
I took out the "ye" because I've been helping my oldest son much with his Grammar homework and the ye is implied.
I would have liked to include his righteousness, because especially here in Lent I've heard that teaching of Jesus renewed in my mind. I am hearing the wake-up to leave the lukewarmness, the tendencies to seek a remedy for my existential loneliness behind, and strive more to turn to God. To wait on the Lord, to immerse myself in scripture to hear his words for me.
Wake-up reminds me that if my older two kids won't get up for Church this coming Sunday on my first attempt, there is going to be a little dousing of water without warning. Well, maybe I will warn them. Actually I've been warning them since I got home from Liturgy last week, the one that they didn't make because they didn't get out of bed and get ready! So, they are just going to get a bit wet if they don't get up.
God is more gentle with me. No dousing.
I do need to turn more often to God, inside and outside of Lent, to seek his Kingship, his Lordship, his righteousness.
To follow the example of Jesus, who rose up after each fall carrying the cross, to complete his mission to be the sacrificial Lamb of God.
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| Passion of the Christ: Jesus getting up after a fall |
I also thought that if someone did find the iPad somewhere, this would be a good verse for them to Google too. It would mean more without the notation than "Do everything with love."
Even though I love the following verse, I didn't choose it, because this verse came up twice during basketball season--you know how verses come up, could be the Klove "Encouraging word of the day", it could be on the opposing coach's website as her favorite verse. Anyway, both times this verse came up, my team lost the next big game we played. So, it has now slipped from being my favorite verse. Yes I do realize that losing a game is a very minuscule amount of suffering to learn a lesson that is a remedy for my pride, self-love, and inconstant dependence on God.
Whatever you do, work at it with all your heart, as working for the Lord, not for human masters (Colossians 3:23)
You can find other good verses the same way I did with the Google searches above, or here are the best sites I found:
Have an awesome and blessed rest of Lent! As of today, we are past the half-way point. Hope the Lord will sustain you in the resolutions and help you retain the insights you have gained by fasting from the distractions that keep us from the healing power of His presence, His grace!
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