“The fact that you are here this morning means that God is in your life, but who is he in your life? Do you turn to him as a life coach or cheerleader who just pats you on the back and encourages you to be a good person? He is the almighty creator of Heaven and Earth! Let God be God – let Him be Himself- in you and in your life…” Sometimes you hear a Sunday morning homily that just sticks. That was one of them. There was something in it that I wanted to explore, something that intrigued me…
I started to think about the ways we tend to treat God in our lives- the way we can compartmentalize him, and box him into a role we expect him to play. He is so much, and he is so much more than we understand. There are parts of him that we are more comfortable with sometimes, and parts that can make us completely uncomfortable. Do we force him into one of those roles, or do we really let God be God the way he lets us be ourselves?
Are we more comfortable with the idea of God as a cheerleader and life-coach, just there to pat us on the back and tell us to be a good person? Do we keep him at the level of an acquaintance or a paramedic? Or do we allow him to be I AM, in who we are? When you get a glimpse of the power and glory of God and know that he lives in you, his child, it’s a bit breath taking, but so, so exciting to think of what he can do, what he wants to do.
God, whose power is stronger than a thunderstorm but gentle like the breeze before Elijah, lives in you. He’s not there to be a cheerleader. He’s there to transform you- to remake you into that image of himself you were created to be- to shape you into a person of perfect freedom and joy through his love. Do you let him?
Christ, who prayed that you and he may be one as he and the Father are one, loves you more deeply than you have been loved by anyone. Do you let him?
The Word, who lived in the beginning and became flesh to save us, speaks to you. He whispers to you in prayer, and sometimes shouts loudly through your circumstances. Are you listening?
The Crucified Savior, who saw you, took your every sin, every fault, and died so that you could be with him forever, pulls all sin that separates you from him away from your life. Do you let him?
The God of surprises, who led the Israelites in the desert, protected Daniel in the Lion’s Den and was born of a virgin, wants you to show you, step by step, a plan for your life in him that is so much better than any of your plans. Do you let him?
Let God be God. Let God be God in you, in your life, in your prayer, in your plans. Instead of making him a consultant, let go and let him take over.
“God builds his house; that is, it does not take shape where people only want to plan, achieve, and produce by themselves. It does not appear where only success counts and where all the “strategies” are measured by success. It does not materialize where people are not prepared to make space and time in their lives for him; it does not get constructed where people only build by themselves and for themselves. But where people let themselves be claimed for God, there they have time for him and there space is available for him.”
* Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger (Pope Benedict XVI)
