Tuesday, May 18, 2004
What do you want from God?
I have to get these RCIA questions completed by next Tuesday, so I want to think about another one: "What do you want from God at this point in your faith journey?"
I think I should go at this backwards and examine what I have been praying about, that should answer "what do I want from God." I ask God for a clean heart when I pray and for the Holy Spirit to fill me. To me, asking for a clean heart means that I want to push despair and pride and lust and all other bad thoughts and attitudes out and let in hope and peace and faith and charity and patience and other good thoughts and practices. I ask to be better able to understand and process what I'm reading and learning about my faith.
I then go through each of my kids and my wife in my mind and ask for the Holy Spirit to visit them and push out the bad and let in the good. I ask for Angels to guard them and help them with their decisions and with their particular challenges. I also ask that my grandparents be allowed to guide and help my children, too, even though, as I wrote before, I tend to believe that people don't just sit around up in heaven waiting for me to die. I think we all die on (what in Heaven is) the same day, or else we die and sleep until the final day arrives. So why do I ask for this? I think, truth be told, that I like raising the images of my grandparents to mind while I'm talking with God.
I pray for my relatives and friends and for others who have asked for prayers or who I have been thinking about. I pray for wisdom and courage in America and in President Bush and his team and for Laura Bush and for our soldiers.
Writing this down it seems long, but it really doesn't take very long to be silent and pray for these things. So, in the end, I want God to help me be a better person, stronger in faith, better able to resist temptations. I want God and Angels to be available for and to nudge my children when they need a good nudging. I want the same for our leaders, who also need nudging now and again... as do I.
I think I should go at this backwards and examine what I have been praying about, that should answer "what do I want from God." I ask God for a clean heart when I pray and for the Holy Spirit to fill me. To me, asking for a clean heart means that I want to push despair and pride and lust and all other bad thoughts and attitudes out and let in hope and peace and faith and charity and patience and other good thoughts and practices. I ask to be better able to understand and process what I'm reading and learning about my faith.
I then go through each of my kids and my wife in my mind and ask for the Holy Spirit to visit them and push out the bad and let in the good. I ask for Angels to guard them and help them with their decisions and with their particular challenges. I also ask that my grandparents be allowed to guide and help my children, too, even though, as I wrote before, I tend to believe that people don't just sit around up in heaven waiting for me to die. I think we all die on (what in Heaven is) the same day, or else we die and sleep until the final day arrives. So why do I ask for this? I think, truth be told, that I like raising the images of my grandparents to mind while I'm talking with God.
I pray for my relatives and friends and for others who have asked for prayers or who I have been thinking about. I pray for wisdom and courage in America and in President Bush and his team and for Laura Bush and for our soldiers.
Writing this down it seems long, but it really doesn't take very long to be silent and pray for these things. So, in the end, I want God to help me be a better person, stronger in faith, better able to resist temptations. I want God and Angels to be available for and to nudge my children when they need a good nudging. I want the same for our leaders, who also need nudging now and again... as do I.
