Proposed beatitudes

I want to propose a couple of new beatitudes. Here’s the first:

Blessed are they who were born without will power, for they shall have to depend on God.

Spiritual power and will power are two different things. Some of us, myself included, have none of the latter, but all of us have the former in abundance – if only we choose to appropriate it.

The two really have nothing whatever to do with each other. I can certainly not bend God to my will any more than God needs me to accomplish His purposes. If, however, I abandon my will in favor of His, then I have the opportunity of being an instrument in His hands – if He chooses to use me. My faith confirms the certainty within me that He desires my instrumentality, albeit that we both know He has a poor workman on the staff. Puny as I am, I’m reminded of what Pope John Paul II once told the priests in Florida while visiting the U.S. We have a tendency to forget, the Pope said, that God can use not only our strength but also our weakness – that our weakness can be most effective in His service.

Along these same lines, I know that there is much about me that I am powerless to change. Even though I want to, I can’t, no matter how many resolutions I make. Left to my own devices, I’m beat, whipped, doomed – a hopeless case.

Go ahead, scoff. Say I could change if I wanted to. Browbeat me. Say I’m the master of my own ship. All the old chidings. They will do no good. I know that my only hope is not in will power, but in spiritual power. Not that I live, but that Christ lives in me. Not that I accomplish, but that God accomplishes in my behalf. I know that my victory will come in and through the beneficence and grace of Jesus Christ the Lord. He’s the real power.

My second beatitude says: Blessed are they who don’t make people their project, for they shall make some authentic friends.

It seems to me that there are so many religious programs around these days that some of them have begun to run their course for want of adherents. In the wake of this shortage of applicants, people have abandoned certain bounds of authenticity in an effort to lure others onto the roles of commencing experiences. I don’t think there’s malice in this: there’s just something cold about it. Recruitment activities seem to me to objectify “pigeons,” rather than spring from sincerity of wanting to offer a genuine friend a genuine opportunity to grow closer to God. Even as we are moved to share our faith with others, should we not begin by accepting them just as they are? In my own zeal to recruit, I have had ulterior motives in establishing relationships. I have found myself being less that honest. Better, I think, to have a sincere, unrecruited friend than a disillusioned acquaintance.

Maybe what it takes is more spiritual power and less will power. – T.R.

written by Thomas A. Russell
first published in the Lafayette Sunday Visitor on January 10th, 1988

Making God my Pilot, instead of my Co-Pilot

We’ve all seen the license plates which say “God is my Co-Pilot.” That’s a nice expression and expresses a faithful attitude, but one which, to my mind, doesn’t go far enough. The saying would be better expressed: “God is my Pilot.”

Now license plates saying that might be enough to strike fear into the hearts of motorists everywhere, having folks craning to see who was driving the car. My distinction, of course, is a spiritual one.

Having God as a co-pilot seems like a relationship with the Lord out of perspective. Either God would be taking over the controls when I let go; or even at best, He would be flying along with me. In the latter scenario, I would still be calling the shots.

I’m not saying that there’s necessarily any conflict between what I want and what God wants for me – but there could be, particularly because I have a strong inclination to sin. My point is that only insofar as God is in control am I in tune with the way things are supposed to be in my life.

So how does that work? I’ve never received any messages from God like Samuel received, or like Paul heard. I have been aware of the Lord working in my life in a lot of ways, but somehow I have perceived His Hand as I went along, or often I will see Him at work only after something has been accomplished. I will ask the Lord’s help to do some work, for example, or to help me talk to someone. During or afterward I will see how He helped me, guiding, giving insight, someway being a part. These understandings have helped me to build up my faith, to see as Thomas did that Jesus is alive.

My problem is common to most of us, I believe: It is in knowing what God wants me to do beforehand. I can think of plenty of things to do, things that are in the scheme of things wholly good and meet and proper. Which, though, should I do? I obviously can’t do everything.

How does a person decide, for example, to be a teacher, or a brick mason, or an engineer, or a janitor? Each of these things can be pleasing to God but one occupation is more suitable to one person, another to another. In our more common experience, among all the charities that beg for support, which one deserves my attention? Should I take the initiative to go to this neighbor or that with a kind word or a help, or should I keep my mouth shut and mind my own business?

I wish I could have a clear and unequivocal word from God about things out front, but alas it doesn’t work that way.

Like my friend Dick is wont to say: “God’s voice often sounds an awful lot like mine.”

The answer to the dilemma of making God my Pilot instead of my Co-Pilot I believe can be found in the very nature of the relationship I have with God. The more intimate and enduring the relationship I have with Him, the more I am going to “know” what He wants me to do. If my wife and I never talked, I would not – could not – be sensitive to all the things I “know” about her. Of course, many are the circumstances when I simply have to ask my wife what she thinks. So it is with God.

The more I come to Him in prayer, the sacraments and in reading His word in the Scripture, the more I will know Him, and understand how all that He has said and has to offer applies to me in the nitty-gritty circumstances of my life. If I never talk to Him, never receive Him into the home of my heart, never hear His word spoken eternally in the Bible, I just won’t know Him, that’s all.

If I keep the Lord on as Co-Pilot only, I may find myself high and dark and trying to find my way on instruments I can’t read. I need to become sensitive to His direction and guidance. If God Himself is just my Co-Pilot, there’s a poor pilot indeed at the controls. Maybe the motorists ought to be afraid of that. – T.R.

written by Thomas A. Russell
first published in the Lafayette Sunday Visitor on February 2nd, 1987