Running the Race

Last summer most people here made a commitment to live for Jesus. We gave you dog tags to remind you of your commitment, and prayed over each of you, etc. Now, 4 months have gone by- how are you doing?

There is a popular notion that once you make your commitment to Christ, that that's in- it's going to be easy. And by easy I don't mean that you won't get persecuted, that you wont sin, that you wont have to make sacrifices. Before you made your commitment, you all knew that that is exactly what was going to be demanded of you!

And yet, there's this notion that by the grace of God you'll just keep up the firm resolve you had in the first place, that you will always choose to reject sin and keep doing the right thing. But let's be honest- how has it been? Are you still "on fire" for God?

Some of you may have a vague memory of the emotions you felt as you made that commitment to God last summer. A bit of a God high, where you felt the love of God and were convicted that you were not living up to the potential for which He created you.

And so you resolved to be Gods- some of you said 100%. Some of you said "I'm committed to being a Saint!". And yet, 4 months down the road, some of you are probably tired and frustrated and disappointed in yourselves because for everything you resolved, you're still not Holy.

Well if that's you, then good! You're exactly who I am giving this talk for.

First of all, let me dispel the notion once and for all that you can make a decision one day on a God high and then not struggle. The truth is, that god high will go away- and that is where the real commitment comes from! It's when you don't feel the presence of God, well all evidence of the existence of God seems gone, that it is most important to be faithful to Him.

What you experienced at counselors week was real. Or maybe you experienced God somewhere else. I assure you- it was real! It was not simply some artificial emotion that we managed to conjure up to con you into believing in the things we believe in. God is a person, and as a person god touches each one of us in a different way. God is not just some impersonal "force" or "energy" like a lot of people would have you believe- so while one person may have felt a huge peace, and even laughter, another may have cried healing tears.

I believe that God wants to touch you again this weekend, and I believe that he will- if you are open.

But when you don't feel Him- remember the commitment you made while you did! St Teresa of Avilla said that she never felt the presence of God in her whole life. the way we feel God is referred to by the Saints as "Consolation". When we don't feel God at all, this is referred to as "desolation". St Teresa never felt that consolation, and yet- she continued to live her life as a Saint for God.

It's like when you get married. On the day that you get married, you will (hopefully) feel a rush of joy and of love to your spouse. After that time is the honey moon- I understand that is reasonably pleasant too. But in time they say that the "honeymoon" stage ends- you don't feel that love and emotion like you used to, in fact, just being with the person you committed to can sometimes seem like a chore!

Isn't that what happened with a lot of us in our relationships with God? We started off feeling all warm and tingly, probably went home from Camp, told some people that we loved them, hugged people we never hugged before, prayed every day- and slowly, the feeling faded, until one day we didn't even want to pray. It's dry. Boring. A chore.

This is reality. real love is not an emotion- it is a decision, a virtue. A virtue is a disposition of the will. In other words, it is a habit of choosing. If you have fallen away from God because you don't feel the emotional rush anymore, remember your commitment! A spouse can't (or shouldn't) divorce their spouse because they "don't feel the love anymore". This would mean that they never really understood what love was.

So, if the feeling is gone, and you have not been living up to your resolve, that's fine. Recommit anyway. This weekend will hopefully be something like a marriage encounter- a chance for you to get away and be with God in a quiet and beautiful place and start communicating again.

Now some of you may be in different shoes. You might be the kind of person who continually renews your commitment to God, and continually says "yeah, I can do better" and continually falls again. And you're frustrated. You're tired of fighting a losing fight! You are angry with yourself, and think "God could not possibly love me!" or you're saying "I'm sure god still does love me, but I don't deserve it, so I'm not going to let Him."

St Therese of Lisieux addressed this issue. Since before the time of Jesus, people have been trying to earn Gods love, and failing. The Pharisees were people who worked hard all day and night to do everything right and to not sin- so that they would deserve the love of God. But they did not understand what god was about.

God said "I desire mercy, not sacrifice!". God wanted to be able to just show them His love, to love them even though they couldn't possibly live up to it! Imagine again if you were in a relationship and your boyfriend or girlfriend kept saying "I'm not good enough for you, I keep screwing up, you shouldn't love me."

Wouldn't that be annoying?

God is Love. That is what his very nature is. God, by his very nature, wants to love you. The very fact that God holds you in existence means that he is loving you- every moment! And when you sin, he is not stunned! He is not scandalized! It's like a father trying to teach his son how to walk. If the son trips, the dad doesn't freak out, and say to the boy "You are no son of mine! You don't deserve my love". Instead the Father wants to get the son back on his feet and say "Try again Son!" Of course, when the boy finally learns to walk, the father will be thrilled- delighted! The boy will still fall sometimes, but as long as he keeps getting up again, the father will be pleased.

but wouldn't it be sad if the boy tripped and gave up- at 2 years old, deciding to never learn to walk. It's just too hard, just too frustrating. That's what we do in our sins!

St Therese says we shouldn't be surprised when we fall- of course we are going to fall! We are human! And it is not God that loves us any less. We should be happy that we have such a good and patient and loving God that he sticks by us and loves us all the more!

We should be happy, because God is all the more glorified by us when we fall, because he just gets to love us again, pour mercy on us again.

This is the thing. At some point, we need to recognize that it is not about us- it is all about God. God's love is what matters- not our own ability to respond to it. St Francis de Sales points out that when we get frustrated with ourselves, it is not love of God that is wounded- it is love of self! We are frustrated because we are not as good as we thought we were- well, stop looking at yourself, and start looking at God!

St Paul is an awesome example of a man who continued to deal with sin, even after coming to Christ.

Romans 7

15I do not know why I do the things I do. I do not do what I want to do. But I do the things I hate.
19I do not do the good thing I want to do, but I do the wrong thing that I do not want to do.

21So there is a law I find that it is at work in me. When I want to do what is right, I can only do what is wrong.
22In my own mind I am glad to obey the law of God.
23But I see that in my body there is another law fighting against the law in my mind. And that makes me like a prisoner to the law of wrong things in my body.
24I am a very sad man. Who will save me from this body that will make me die?
25Thank God for Jesus Christ our Lord who will do it!

So St Paul clearly recognized that even though he had come to know Christ and was living as a great Christian, he continued to sin, to 'do the things he hates' none the less! He knew on the one hand that he had to have hope- that Jesus would free him from his sin. But he acknowledged that it was a struggle for him.

In many ways the Christian life gets more difficult the deeper into it you go. People have this notion that once they overcome the initial obstacles to Christianity, that it will somehow get easier. Where did they get this idea?

Here's a question- was Jesus tempted more or less than most people?

On the one hand, Jesus did not have concupiscience. This is the tendency in us towards sin that we have from original sin. So, someone might say that he must not have been tempted as much.

However, St Josemaria Escriva, founder of Opus Dei, made the argument that when we are tempted, we are usually tempted pretty much until we give in or distract ourselves. Jesus never gave in to temptation. In other words, his temptation would have gotten worse and worse and worse.

This is likely what was happening to Jesus in the garden of Gethsemane. Remember that he was fighting to try to do the will of his Father. Some people think that he sweat drops of blood because he was so stressed about what was going to happen the next day. But Jesus always told us not to worry about anything. I think that what happened was that he was being tempted to give in, and not let them kill him, and he did not have the consolation of the presence of God- and the temptation was so intense, and he resisted it to the point of sweating blood.

So just as Jesus, though perfect, struggled big time against temptation, and just as Paul needed to remind himself that he had to have hope in Jesus that he would be saved from his sin, I think we need to have the same disposition.

St Paul compared the spiritual journey to a race;

1 Corinthians 9:24-27

9:24 Do you not know that all the runners in a stadium compete, but only one receives the prize? So run to win. 9:25 Each competitor must exercise self-control in everything. They do it to receive a perishable crown, but we an imperishable one.
9:26 So I do not run uncertainly or box like one who hits only air. 9:27 Instead I subdue my body and make it my slave, so that after preaching to others I myself will not be disqualified.

What tends to happen in the spiritual race is we keep getting distracted- either by things on the side lines, or by how we feel, or by how far we have come. We need instead to be like a runner who keeps his eyes on the goal. Our goal is not Sainthood itself. Our goal is the person who is Christ. If we continue to push on, looking to Christ as our goal, and making all the little sacrifices, and enduring suffering for love of Him, this is the Christian journey!