Thursday, June 02, 2005

free of my own preoccupations

This thought, under the caption Freedom (the discipline leads you from "The Presence of God" to "Freedom" to "Conciousness" to "The Word" to "Conversation", came to me in a moment of prayer:

"I will ask God's help, to be free of my own preoccupations...".
(from Sacred Space)


That is a difficult one, to be free of my own preoccupations. It has something to do with trusting God, or entrusting some part of life, or all of life, to God (to the unseen). It has something to do with letting God set the agenda, which is all about God's will. On another day, the word about freedom came from Ignatius: "There are very few people who realise what God would make of them if they abandoned themselves into his hands, and let themselves be formed by his grace".


We entertain the possibility of trusting God, or allowing God to set the agenda, because we are beginning to realize that God indeed might do something with us that is beyond our imagining, and this has everything to do with grace.

Our preoccupations are most often shaped by the clutter of a culture driven and shaped by forces that are personally, spiritually, emotionally, politically and environmentally destructive. Our preoccupations lead us to a conformity with the world (Romans 12. 2). Abandonment into the hands of God comes through the renewing of our minds, as we let go.

Augustine, the bishop and teacher of the early church, expressed it well: "God is always trying to give good things to us, but our hands are too full to receive them".

Today, I will ask God's help, to be free of my own preoccupations...

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