A Life in God's Order

Prayer puts our life in order.  Often we are too busy to pray, thinking that the urgent things that rush us in the morning are more important than taking time to quiet down with the Lord. Many times we are too tired to pray, thinking that our bodies need to hit the bed because of the strain of the day's activities rather than be filled by the Lord.
When we are lured to this mentality, we will even become more busy and even more tired.  We forget that prayer, through our Lord, puts it in the right perspective.  So the lesser we pray, the more our priorities get out of order. This makes us busy with the wrong priorities, thus having more work.

When neglecting to pray and meditate, we only use our physical strength and neglect to tap the immense power of our spiritual strength. Our physical and mental abilities can only bring us to certain limit. But the spiritual strength that God gifts us through the Holy Spirit, can make us achieve what is impossible.  Jesus, being both human and divine, knew the value of prayer. In those days he departed to the mountain to pray, and he spent the night in prayer to God (Luke 6:12)


The connection of ourselves to Christ, exposes the deceptions of the devil that leads us to sinfulness and pride.  The lower we bow down in prayer, the higher the Lord lifts us up in our lives. He redirects us away from the evil's schemes and brings us forth to His path. But seek ye first the kingdom of God, and his righteousness;and all these things shall be added unto you (Matthew 6:33).  If we are living according to the order that God wants for our lives, we shall truly experience the fullness of what God has in store for those who love Him.

Eliminating Garbage

We are now in the exciting process of transferring to a new office location. Every department is readying themselves. Throwing away old useless files, scanning and digitally archiving documents, leaving old furniture, sorting, cleaning, and packing. The idea is to transfer with the least amount of stuff possible.
When we decide to 'transfer' to the Lord, we leave everything behind. We leave our hurts, fears, and failures. We embrace the new life that Jesus has in store for us. We throw away all the useless things that lead us far from Him. St Paul declared, "For His sake I have thrown everything away; I consider it all as mere garbage, so that I may gain Christ...(Phil. 3:8)."
What are we to do to eliminate the garbage in our life?
1. Sort out sin from your conscience.
When sin is embedded in our lives, we tend to condition our consciences that the sin we do is justifiable. Thoughts like, "Everyone is doing it anyway" or "If I don't get caught, then there's no harm done" are our attempts to justify our sins. What we should do is call sin a sin. Let us sort sin out of our consciences, and identify them for what they really are, the devil's schemes.
2. After sorting, throw away the garbage that is sin. Simply said, confess your sins to a priest. The Sacrament of Reconciliation, through God's grace, absolves from our sins. We are cleansed from the garbage in our hearts. " Create in me a clean heart O God (Psalm 51:10)."
3. After throwing away our sinfulness, we then put order in our lives by putting Christ first. When we prioritize Christ, all else follows. " But seek ye first his kingdom, and his righteousness; and all these things shall be added unto you (Mt. 6:33)." By putting Christ first, through prayer, we are tapping on His power to create miracles in our lives. Even in seemingly hopeless situations, we are brought to His perspective and submission to His will. This gives us genuine hope and wisdom that situates our lives in proper order.
It's time to do some sorting of our conscience, cleansing from sin , and putting our lives in order for Christ. Let us eliminate and leave the garbage of evil in our lives and transfer permanently to Christ Jesus, our true home.

Recollecting Our Scattered Lives

Coffee shops. A dim lighted place where people meet friends, relax, reflect, meet for business, or get a shot of espresso to perk them up. As I am writing this entry, I am in one right now. Some are having serious heart to heart talks, others browse the net, and some are engaged in explaining their business model. While some are just waiting and making the most out of the free newspaper. For me, it is a time well spent alone reflecting on my life and waiting upon the Lord to speak. For many years, besides chapels, coffee shops have been a place for me to recollect.

Recollect in simple terms is "to collect again." Why do we need to do this? As the days of our lives progress, we come across many people and many circumstances. We find ourselves committing to various responsibilities, and sometimes we are overwhelmed by the things we get into. There are moments that we find our lives as scattered, with no sense of order.

When we recollect, we pick up or collect, again, these scattered pieces of our lives. We put it in the right order and throw away the unnecessary. Without recollection, we cannot develop our inner strength, the strength of soul. Our souls dictate to us our sense of purpose and our true joy. If we do not connect with our souls, we will be living frustrating lives because we will be acting like puppets. As puppets, we are controlled by the dictates of our immediate environment. We are stringed to what people say and tell us. The soul is the life in us, making us live life with no strings attached. Connecting to our souls make us free.

Now, who or what influences our souls? Many are willing to trade the goodness of their souls for money, lust, fame, and power. Let us not corrupt our souls. Let us not allow evil things to take hold of our souls. Sin will suck our souls dry to the bones, until we give up hope and submit to evil.

But the Lord promises His Spirit:

Ezekiel 37:3-5

He asked me: Son of man, can these bones come to life? "Lord GOD," I answered, "you alone know that."Then he said to me: Prophesy over these bones, and say to them: Dry bones, hear the word of the LORD! Thus says the Lord GOD to these bones: See! I will bring spirit into you, that you may come to life.

We connect our souls to God's Holy Spirit. When we recollect, we bring our scattered selves back to the Lord and become united in His Spirit once again. What are ways to recollect? Here are some that I know:

Through prayer, study, sacraments, and service. Prayer, allows us to praise, humble down, surrender, and listen to the Lord. We are recollected of who we are, His servants. Sacraments, lets us receive his graces like how the sacrament of reconciliation through confession releases us from sin, like how the Eucharist allows us to worship and partake of Christ's body and blood. We are recollected that his grace overflows and we need only ask. Study, makes us seek God's wisdom. And service, gives us the chance to put our faith into action. With service, we are recollected that it is not always about ourselves.

May prayer, study, sacraments, and service put our lives in God's perspective. Amidst the clutter, busyness, pollution, and politics of everyday life, may we be able to connect with our souls and bring it forth to be united with the Holy Spirit.

Reflection Questions:
When was the last time that you have recollected?
What are the "scattered" areas in your life that need to be recollected?
How will you put these "scattered" areas in God's order?

Putting Order in our Lives

I finally arranged my books. I always wanted to categorize my books and put them in neat and orderly shelves. In that way I can easily locate a specific book when I need it for reference. But it wasn't an easy task. I had to take all the books out from the its old storage, dusted 'em off a bit, sneezed a lot, moved a cabinet to the next room, took the trash out, sorted out the books, and finally arranged them by size and topic. Whew!

It's not easy to put things in order. Specially if done at one time. The same with our lives, it's not easy to put it in order. There are things we have to take out, sort out, and arrange.

We have to take out the trash in our lives. Trash like bad habits of procrastination, laziness, and our vices. These are things that hinder our progress. They are causes of clutter in our lives and we have a hard time changing or getting rid of them because we have become comfortable of our bad habits. The effects of this are debts, compromised integrity, and low self worth. As soon as we straighten up and take out the trash, it will be easier to sort things out. We have to know how to give time to the different roles we have in our lives. We have our roles in the family, business, service, and friends, to name a few. We are to give ample time to each. The challenge is not to balance them, but to be able to give our best in each. Sometimes our time with family is overlapped with our work or service. We get it all mixed up. We can't determine what's family time, work time, service time, or friends' time. It is a matter of proper planning and knowing when to say "no" so we can say "yes" to those that need our time. Arranging is about prioritizing. There will be times when two important things come at the same schedule. If we know our priorities, guided by our core values and personal mission statement, a clear decision can be made. We are able to arrange our lives and put it in order.

Putting our lives in order cannot be a one time process. We are to watch out for patterns of laziness and procrastination. When we have finally put our lives in order, but then later we slack off, in time we will be back in our old mess. Let us then continually live out the process of taking out the trash, sorting out, and arranging our lives. With God's strength we are able to overcome our bad habits and live a life that is pleasing to Him.

"...since he is not the God of disorder but of peace (1 Corinthians 14:33)."