a Great Teaching

Yesterday, someone asked me a simple question:  When you go for spiritual direction, what is expected?  Since I had never gone for spiritual direction, I could not really answer that question, so we called over our pastor, who had just finished Mass.

His answer,so simple, gave me so much to think about:  The spiritual director is a discerning, another "eye," helping you to see what God is doing in your life right now.

How many of us, whether seeking spiritual direction or not, ask What is God doing in my life right now?  It is a simple question, cutting through all of our theology and pursuits of the mind:  What is God doing in my life right now?

We seek to understand so many things in our lives:  the hurts of the past, the directions of the future -- but what about the present moment?  Is God here, in this moment?  And if He is here, what is He doing right now?

I think of the young man in the Gospel who asked Jesus, "Master, what must I do to inherit eternal life?"  Jesus answered him: You know the commandments...." and the young man said, "all of these I have followed all my life."  So now we know where the young man was at that moment.  And at that moment, the Holy Spirit put his finger on the blockage in the man's life:  Sell what you have, give to the poor, and come, follow me.  The man walked away sad---for him, it was a moment of profound revelation of the next step.  I like to think that his "walking away sad" was not the end of the conversation with God, but the doorway to the rest of his life.  Having seen the truth of his heart in that moment, it may be that he spent the rest of his life parting with the things that ensured his physical security, but left no room for the security of eternal life.  It may be that, by the end of his life, he was truly free of the chains that bound him to earth -- because of that moment of encounter with Jesus Christ. 

Surrendering all that we have to the Lordship of Jesus is the work of a lifetime; it is not accomplished in one moment.  As Jesus said, "The spirit is willing, but the flesh is weak."  Our spirits in one moment can attach themselves to the things of God; it takes a little longer for the flesh to follow.  So the young man, though not at that moment "selling all his possessions," must have gone home and taken a good look at all he owned, weighing his possessions against the joy He experienced in the Presence of Jesus Christ. 

Jesus invited him to a life of perfect trust in God; at that moment, the young man was not "there." His trust still resided in his earthly possessions and inheritance.  It was as if Jesus had given him a glimpse of a distant land which he would one day possess.  But the journey was not to be accomplished in one day -- it was the journey of a lifetime.

If we ask God what He is doing in our lives today, will He not also give us a glimpse into where we are going?  We are not yet there, but we might see the future, in a sense, of our souls.  Very few of us can see where we are on the journey, but we can place our trust in the One Who knows the Way and Who is willing to lead us to the next step. 

What is God doing in our lives today?  He is leading us away from clinging to the things of the past and teaching us to cling to Him alone.  He is the Way and the Source of Eternal Life!