What Happens After the Call

"Then the Spirit led Jesus into the desert to be tempted by the devil." - Matthew 4:1


My little brothers have this misconception that once you get touched by God it's this one time deal that changes the rest of your life. It can be, but they think that after that, it all gets better, our faith becomes solid and everything is great. There's nothing further from the truth.

The first time Jesus makes an appearance in the gospels as an adult was during His baptism in the Jordan River by John the Baptist. John recognized Him to be the Christ and while baptizing Him, the sky opened up and the voice of God was heard saying that Jesus was His son, His beloved. You have to remember, Jesus was also fully human, so for a human to have experienced something so profound, it had to have really shaken Him up and touched Him. What do you do after such an extraordinary touch from God? I think most people would go off by themselves to pray and try to make sense of what just happened and how they're supposed to respond to God next.

As we can see from this verse above, the Spirit led Jesus into the desert right after His baptism to be tempted by the devil. The desert was where Jesus went to think about what happens next, what He was supposed to do, but it also symbolizes what we all go through as soon as we feel God's presence come into our lives. What happens is that it feels like God withdraws. Like He touched us, but then pulls away. Jesus was also in a symbolic desert. He was alone and it felt like He was stripped away from the protection of God and vulnerable to the attacks of the enemy. At this point, we all become vulnerable. We forget the touch we received from God and when the devil comes around to rob us of the experience we had (and he will do this) we are tempted by sins of the flesh, we might want to test God or we become arrogant and think we don't need God and what we felt before wasn't true. And the worst part of it is that this happens and we don't realize it's happening. If these pitfalls were so obvious, none of us would sin. In the desert, when He felt alone and without God, the devil tempted Jesus with sins of the flesh, he tempted Him to show His power if He really was so beloved by God, and he tried to offer Jesus all the powers in the world. As tired and exhausted as Jesus was, He fought back the temptation. How did He do this? Was it because He was God? No, it was because Jesus knew God's promises and God's Word. To each and every attack of the devil, Jesus was able to resist with scripture and faith.

This is why we all need to remain strong in the faith and strong in the Word of God. When we experience a touch from God, there will be moments where we will not perceive the presence of God and we will be tempted and attacked by the devil. All this is necessary so that we grow and become truly powerful in the Lord... so that we are not easily knocked around. But if you are not prepared, on the day of temptation, you will fall. Now is the moment to prepare. Now is the moment to pray and ask for the Lord's protection so that when we are called out into the desert, we can be like Christ and face anything.

Today's Prayer:
Lord Jesus, You equipped me with all I need to fight the enemy. Now that I have been filled with Your Spirit, prepare me for my dark night and prepare me for battle with the enemy. Lord, cover me with Your blessing so that I may never fall and lose sight of the work You want to do in me. In Your Name we pray, amen.

The Perceived Absence of God

"Jesus replied, 'You believe because you see me, don't you? Happy are those who believe although they do not see.'" - John 20:29

Watch this video from The Colbert Report on Comedy Central:




Don't let Stephen Colbert fool you in this video. He's actually a devout Catholic who even teaches Sunday school. What he did in this video is bring to national attention a really important topic - the apparent absence of God in our lives. As some of you may know, a book was just published about Mother Theresa in which she writes about her struggles with her faith, even feeling that God didn't exist, Jesus didn't exist. This absence of God is what Saint John of the Cross called the "dark night of the soul" and it's something we all experience for reasons only God knows. There are times we really feel God there with us, and other times it feels as if He's abandoned us. For Mother Theresa, this absence lasted for about 50 years. These are the moments in which we must really practice our faith. Remember, faith is being sure of what we hope for and certain of what we do not see (Hebrews 11:1), so when God appears to be absent, be strong and secure in the fact that He is there, He is listening and He is acting on your behalf. Silently yet clearly, He moved Mother Theresa through those 50 years in devotion to Him. When Jesus says in the above verse, you believe because you see, He is not only referring to Thomas seeing Jesus with his natural eyes, but our ability to sense God, sense Jesus or the Holy Spirit, to really feel as if we're being listened to. But Jesus also says that blessed are those who believe without seeing, without feeling. You prove your faith by holding strong at these times - you are tested in fire and found to be gold. You show your love and confidence in God by remaining true to His commandments no matter how distant He feels from you. This is why instead of being viewed as an atheist or a fake Christian, Mother Theresa of Calcutta is actually a champion of the faith. She persevered through God's perceived absence in her life because her faith told her that although her spirit and her body couldn't feel God there, He was there with her all along. Someone who didn't believe in Jesus Christ wouldn't have spent hours kneeling before the tabernacle in deep prayer. Someone who didn't have the love of Christ wouldn't have devoted her life to helping and bathing the poor and the old. Most people wouldn't have made it past a few days, but she dedicated her entire life to God. Don't let your senses deceive you, Jesus Christ is alive and active in your life and if you don't feel Him, keep praying…practice your faith and remember that even someone as devoted as Mother Theresa struggled, yet persevered because although her senses fooled her, her faith always reconfirmed in her heart that Jesus Christ is the Way, the Truth, and the Life.

Today's Prayer:
Lord Jesus, strengthen my faith so that I never get lost in my dark night of the soul. Give me courage for those moments in which I don't feel You are there and work through me to strengthen my brothers and sisters who feel Your absence at this moment. In Your Name we pray, amen.

Mother Teresa's Perseverance of Faith

I was watching the Today Show yesterday and during a segment they introduced a new book entitled, "Come Be My Light: The Private Writings of the 'Saint of Calcutta.'" This book publishes many letters she wrote during her lifetime to colleagues and friends and it seems that the overall theme of the letters was her struggle with her faith. In one letter, she actually writes, "What do I labour for? If there be no God, there can be no soul, if there is no Soul then Jesus You also are not true."

While part of me feels that this book is a good example for those that struggle through the dark night of the soul, I also feel that the media and those that take every opportunity they can find to knock down religion are going to use this as an excuse to say that even someone like Mother Teresa, who dedicated her life to God, did not believe but spent her life pretending.

The truth is that we all struggle. When Paul wrote in Ephesians that our struggle is not against human forces, but the forces of evil, he was 100% right. While we're here on earth, we will go through things that will severly test our faith. The enemy is subtle and effective at making us believe that God has abandoned us and He is not faithful, but like all things that truly matter and are important, we need to continue the daily struggle with our faith.

The call to follow God is NOT something that comes easily. Day after day we need to renew our dedication and our belief that Jesus Christ is the way, the truth and the life and by no other name shall we have eternal life. Some days we are on fire and we feel the Holy Spirit with us constantly, while other days we feel so alone and wonder why God has abandoned us. This is why Paul and the other writers of the New Testament constantly warned us about the importance of staying steadfast through these trials, because they happen to all of us. The 1st letter of Peter, chapter 2 says, "Thus will your faith be tested, like gold in a furnace, gold, however, passes away but faith, worth so much more, will bring you in the end praise, glory, and honor when Jesus Christ appears." He even goes on to say, "you are reaching the goal of your faith: the salvation of your souls."

So when you struggle with your faith, do not think you are alone because even the most holy people that walked the earth like Mother Teresa had the same doubts. Although her written words expressed doubt, the works of her hands expressed the most amazing faith in God. Someone that does not believe in God would never live the life that she lived or give so much of herself to those that society chooses to turn a blind eye to. If she did not believe, she would have given up her work decades ago instead of picking up her cross each day. She chose to believe that the Lord Almighty is her God and that Jesus Christ is her savior and she perservered in the faith to the very end.

My prayer is that all those that hear about this book and her struggles choose to see her as an example of someone who said yes to God every day of their lives despite doubts and adversity, instead of using this champion of the faith as another excuse to say God does not exist.