God is Ez

How often I face people newly exposed to the faith, or opting out of it, entirely because they are so caught up in legalism, formalities, not being "perfect" enough, and how they stand outside of it, not wanting to delve into building a relationship with God, often in the back of their minds, thinking, it's something they will do later.  When this or that is right, when they have become "holy" enough, when they have prepared, when they have a whole myriad of excuses preventing them from jumping right in.  I always tell them, he accepts you as you are, in the here and now, flaws in full bloom and all.  Regardless of your lifestyle, regardless of what you struggle with, regardless of what you have done, or what has been done to you.  We all fall short, we all are just weak flawed creatures, and his love is not conditional.

God is easy, the world is hard, and this is a fact.  How often we are told to buy this or that, spend ridicules amounts of time and resources preparing for this or that thing, this or that career, even being told you cannot have a family until you have achieved some worldly goal, or many of them.  The fact is, the world, and all it contains, is an idol, it's a false teacher, it's a stumbling block, and it's a deceiver.  Only God is the truth, and him alone, if you go about your life thinking you must just help yourself, and God has little part in your life as a provider, you have gotten it backwards.  How we are so easily deceived into thinking he's such a distant being, someone only set aside for those special times, during church, or when everything fails, or when you are just in deep prayer, or all of these little moments in your life, but not a constant.  I can say, if you believe in him or not, he's still there, 24/7, with you, and it's only a matter of simply acknowledging him, the more you do, the more aware of his presence, the more you realize, you are never alone.

How many people do you know that feel the pang of loneliness?  They may have people around them, or not, but they still feel alone, they are on their journey in life, never interacting, never reaching the point of having someone know them, know them in full, and only he can, and if you let him, he can make others around you know you in ways you could never imagine, yet it takes time to escape the island mentality.  We are told to be all self sufficient, to be totally independent, to rely upon self, and trust nobody.  This is the world telling you this, the world wants you to remain estranged to our Lord, for once you stop buying into the lie, it no longer has control over you.  The one that controls the world is the evil one, and he uses every tactic under the sun to deceive the world, but we can rise above that and no longer reside within it, and doing so is quite easy to do.

The first thing, almost every single time, with someone new to the faith, just curious, or has an urge to follow our Lord and build a relationship with him, people begin by thinking they must clean house, that they must prepare themselves by changing this or that about themselves.  They throw in a stumbling block onto their own path, before the very first step is even made, instead of walking, they pile an obstacle in their way.  It's natural, we are told that one must be this or that, have this or that credential to fill this or that roll, they must prepare themselves before meeting others, before doing a job, before attending an event, and this is natural, but guess what, no amount of preparation one can make, will ever be sufficient to fully prepare for an experience with God, so don't bother trying to make yourself ready along these first steps, he makes you ready as he sees fit, and only through his grace, not your efforts is going to do it, yet there of course, is a measure of simply being receptive to allow his will to become your will, so it does take a degree of simply letting go, letting go of ego, letting go of pride, letting go of anger, letting go of hurt's, letting go of the lies the world has instilled in ones being all of their lives. 

Start simple, really, simple, as in, opening up yourself to listen to what he wants you to do.  Along the most basic level, simply opening up a dialog with him, even if it seems one sided, simply talk to him, find a quiet place where you can be alone and just speak.   You have just made that first step, it's huge when it comes down to it, it's more powerful then any prayer, more powerful then any church service, more powerful then any sermon or teaching.  Speak what is on your mind, get it all out, complaints, plee's, anger, fears, tears, etc. it doesn't matter, honestly, there is nothing you can say to him that will drive him away, and he knows every word you are going to say, before you say it, so nothing is going to be a surprise to him.  It's a process, believe me, what I talked to God about as a child is not at all what I talk to him about as an adult, maturing in the faith, and he knows this, he knows where I was at, and it was enough to begin with this most important dialog.

Stage two, prayer, with enough dialog, you soon find yourself more in prayer, hopefully you also form a bond, where you realize you do have a companion in your life, one who knows you far deeply then any human being ever could.  Naturally you end up going from simple dialog, to prayer, and it's not about form, or stance, it's about setting aside a more intimate dialog with him.  To share more of yourself with him, along your deeper levels, and hopefully you start to pray for others, he loves it when we pray for others well being, it's a selfless act, and it's an unselfish one.  Through prayer, you are also learning to quiet your mind, and calm your soul, opening yourself up more, eliminating more of those obstacles, so that he can administer, teach, guide, and reveal his love to you more.  The natural result of this is an internal house cleaning.  Your world may not have changed an iota, externally, but internally, mountains are being moved, you are coming home!!!

Stage three, with enough dialog and prayer, he will guide you to be near other believers in fellowship, you soon realize these people that were so foreign before, so alien in their thinking, are not quite so distant.  His spirit will guide you as to where to go and when.  You will also have to face those old worldly values attempting to get in your way, trying to get you to excuse yourself from attending a church, trying to prevent you from reading the bible, and you must at this stage recognize, this is spiritual warfare in it's most basic and common form.  If he guides and prompts you to pick up the word, to attend a church, simply run with it, ignore the temptation to put it off.  Think about it this way, what if I were to give you the winning lottery ticket, are you going to put off cashing it in?  Are you going to put it off, worried that taxes or other complications are going to cause problems, things you have to address, or are you going to not hesitate and claim your prize?  This is the same thing, and what are you giving up.  An hour of your time?  It's not a whole lot out of your day, surely you waste an hour doing some menial thing, such as watching tv, or browsing some department store, surely this isn't a whole lot to ask, and the reward you receive is tremendous.  Never make the excuse that you don't belong, don't deserve, don't any of that, you have just as much of a right, if not more so to attend a church then anybody else.

Stage three, reflect upon what transpired, observe how your thoughts are now compared to before you started that dialog with our Lord.  Has he by now revealed himself to you?  Surely he has, some glimmer of hope has sprung up in your being, and you have now seen change in effect, within your being.  Remember that house cleaning element you were so adamant about implementing before embarking on that journey?  It's not something you have taken the initiative upon, he's already doing it through you, it's an effortless process, and now you find yourself becoming part of "his" family, and the body of Christ are your brethren.  Hopefully you have made some friends along the way, in or out of church attendance, those of us with our common faith, always have at least him in common, him to dialog about, the thing that binds us together, the common theme is God himself.  You should also start to experience some hope and optimism you did not have before, you should start to feel that peace we as believers share, and these are just some of his gifts.  Taking it slowly like this, careful reflection, use these moments to reinforce where you are going, that you are on the right path, and remember all of those years along the ways of the world, how it's empty promises did nothing but give you pain and suffering, it's false hopes never did deliver you happiness, peace, and hope, in fact, just the opposite.  It's during this stage ones resolve must be cemented.  You are going to need to rely upon this, as the world tries it's best to derail you, to detur you away from your growing relationship with God, and you can use these thoughts to combat it.  Remembering, up to this point, you have been facing spiritual warfare, and you have to come to the resolve, why would it put up such a fight if it was all that concerned, surely the world was not there for you when you got down, when you were sad and alone, when you were in pain, where was it during these times?  Surely, our Lord on the other hand is there especially during those times, and this clearly is the defining difference.,

Stage four, you should by now have found a church you call home, some place that just rests well with you, and that you have not bought into some prosperity gospel driven, watered down, distortion of a church, you have found a body of believers that really do get God for who he is, and these people, even though you barely know them, are your brothers and sisters.  It takes time to get to be known in any community, churches are the same, and some parishes are harder then others to integrate within.