Focus on your Future
Do you want the pleasures or the powers or the prosperity of this world? Or do you want your Creator, your loving Redeemer and your Sanctifier? Ultimately everything we do, think or say is an answer to these questions. So we must discover what really motivates our soul and determine whether we are living for the future or for the moment.
In every aspect of our lives there is this focus on our future. It may be that we focus on the short term and seek the entertainment captured in a small box in our living room. That small box is a tabernacle of the demonic which seeks to infiltrate the heart by continuous repetition on selfish actions. Our future is bleak if that is the greatest motivation of our daily life. What to do? Deny that box the power to control you and turn to the study of the word of God in action. You cannot serve both God and mammon. You will either serve the one and hate the other or vice versa. Our hearts will always be restless, as St. Augustine states, unless those hearts rest in with God. Therefore we conquer the worldliness by seeking the kingdom of God and His will for each of us.
While coaching baseball with many black boys that missed their fathers, they focused upon the challenge of being so great at baseball that they could be professional. This was their focus and it took some time and much repetition to move their hearts to play for the pleasure of God rather than for their own pride. When it came down to the transformation of their spirit it was constant reflection and prayer between the innings that brought them to the goal which was desired: to play for the glory of God. Everything has to be subordinated to the One Who called us into being. God is love and he who abides I in love abides in God.
If in our focus we turn to this principle then our faith will conquer all the obstacles that the devil puts in our path. This faith teaches us daily that God is provident. Look at the nature that surrounds you. The flowers are glorious and their colors so unique and they do not worry about being beautiful and we don’t cloth them. So why should we allow fashion to dictate to us? What about the gardens that produce such tasty tomatoes, water melons, peas and carrots? God feeds the plants and the plants become our food. God’s providence will take care of all we need. As the psalmist reminds us over and over that all we need is the food and clothing to live our lives and with them we are content.
Did you know that St. Catherine of Siena had to pay a price for her beloved father to enter heaven directly after his death? He was headed to a good stint in Purgatory but for the sacrifice of his beloved daughter who begged her Beloved to let her take on the punishment of suffering here for her dad. If her dad had denied himself certain pleasure she would never have found himself at Purgatory’s door. Think about the sacrifices we let pass us by and the opportunities we have to do good to another and so deny ourselves for the sake of intensifying our love for God.
WE cannot serve both God and mammon but we sure want to compromise because our bodies dictate and control our souls. Let the soul gain and the body loses. Let the body gain and the soul loses. As Catholics in an era of paganism and demonic democrats we are called to take advantage of any and every opportunity to deny ourselves the mammon that confronts us. This can only take place if we WILL to embrace the Will of God. Everything in the order of nature is subject to our will and if we follow the pattern of God then we lay down our rebellious arms and submit everything to God.
May our divine Lord and our Blessed Mother, whose sorrows we meditate upon daily, guide us through the seas of the life to the shores of everlasting happiness with the angels and the saints. Heaven is a reality in which the will of God is perfectly accepted and order reigns supreme. With the statement of Dante we echo cheerfully: “In Thy Will is our peace. ” We hope to make it to heaven but the journey begins here. Let us take up our future life and focus all our thoughts, words and deeds upon this glorious gift of the Beatific Vision. Keep your spiritual eyes focused on Jesus and Mary and you will find peace.
In the hearts of Jesus, Mary and Joseph,
Fr. Richard Voigt, S.D.B.
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