2nd Lent: Be all that you can Be...in God

Remember the old motto from the Army: “Be all that you can be!” It was a good motto.  Often we have particular goals/dreams: get into a particular college/university; get a particular job( usually high paying); get into heaven.  On the surface, this sounds fine, but….is that all to this life? Isn’t there more? How do we want to be when we are in college? Who do we want to be when we get our “Dream” job” Who do we want to be in heaven?

A wise person wrote that it is not the goal that matters, but the “who” we become. The journey of life is not to simply attain those particular goals, but to become who we truly are.

Then who are we truly?

In 1 John 3:2 “Beloved, we are God’s children now, what we shall be has not yet been revealed. We do know that when it is revealed we shall be like him...Everyone who has this hope based on him makes himself pure, as he is pure.”

We are God’s children. The very core of our being remains that we are a child of God. We signify this at Baptism. Our journey, our life is to express this in our person, in our unique way. We become the fullness of this. As Children of God we express who God is to the world.  Jesus’ freedom, Jesus’ salvation frees us to become one with God, so as to become the Child of God the Fullness of who we are as persons.

We remember the Transfiguration today. Jesus shone, and the three disciples witnessed it. He stands with the figure of the Law and the figure of the Prophets, both historically for the Jewish people represented God to the people. Jesus stands as THE final and full expression of all that God is to be. He Reveals to us this is our becoming as well, our identity.

But, the rest of the story, this becoming is not based on status, finances, college admin, job, rank...and it is not achieved by our own merits, but by surrendering.   Becoming ourselves is by giving of ourselves, it is by love. Not always the easiest thing to do.

Lent reminds us of this. The Why of Lent is that we come to know God on a deeper level, and thus we become more as persons. We become more to this world.

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

19th Sunday. With just a little faith...

Image
Parents, you are amazing. Each day you wake up and walk into the chaos of life with those special little somethings. Each day you walk into life and make choices, with little preparation, with those kids that are inherently bipolar: angels in one moment, in another, even Satan would be scared of them. Again, there is little prep; there is no easy app for parenting. I will repeat again, I do not mind noisy kids in mass; noisy adults I do, you all know better, but kids…please bring them and have them here. Parents thank you for bringing them and for having the courage and faith to be parents. Recently a friend asked me about depression. He asked me to describe what it is like. I could only give my experience: it is like a fog. It is being so overwhelmed by everything and feeling everything, and lacking the ability to take a step forward, to make a choice. There is no movement, only stagnation. It takes a lot of energy to be able to make a choice, to take a step. Earlier this week I w
Read more

22nd Sunday Following the Messiah

Image
My first car was a 1977 chevy nova, v-6, two doors; under the hood there was so much space. I got it the summer before my sophomore year in college, so I was 18-19. I wanted to change the oil so my dad told me how to do it. He said when I change the filter, hand tighten first, then give a small turn with the wrench, do not overtighten it. Me, being a college man, and knowing everything, gave it a good strong turn and thought well done. Several months later, it was time to change the filter again. I could not get it off. I tried and tried. My dad noticed and came to help. He told me that I had cranked it hard the last time didn’t I. Yup, with a degree of shame. He worked to get that thing off. My Uncle who lived nearby saw the commotion, He came and helped. It took them a long time, and what they did was eventually pound through the tire jack, and twisted it off that way. I learned my lesson; I felt a lot of shame on that one. Being able to hold in tension or conflicting ideals signifie
Read more

2nd Advent - Finding our way in God's Love

Image
Many years ago a friend living in Texas came up to visit me in Fernley. This friend had been born and raised in the city. Anyway, I had asked him what he would like to do and he wanted to go geocaching. Okay, I thought it is March in Northern Nevada, fun! But we went, found a cache located near Lahontan Reservoir, and so we drove out there. I parked the car near the cache and the gps device told us the cache was about 500 feet away. I looked around and had a sense of where it would be, on this hillside. My friend became worried: worried that we would get lost. I said not a problem. What if we lose sight of the car? I looked around, it was Nevada sage, no tree for miles; and again we were only going 500 feet up a hill. I said we will be fine, we will never lose sight of the car and we won’t get lost. We didn’t. I have been lost in the wilderness once. It was scary. I was in Northern New Mexico, in a thick forest and it was an overcast day. I was by myself, and nobody knew where I was, a
Read more