Darkness is only discernable to people who have seen the light and know of its existence. Truth is ‘divine light’ and it comes from God. Divine truth opens the mind and the heart to understand and find the path of enlightenment. In the prayer ‘Our Father’ we pray ‘thy kingdom come’ and ‘thy will be done’. However we can pray ‘thy kingdom come’ and never really do God’s Holy Will.

Why?

We cannot build ‘God’s Kingdom’ until we are blessed with spiritual understanding and spiritual desire.

Consider a builder given the mandate to build a palace. He is chosen to build that palace because he understands the principles of construction. Similarly we cannot build the ‘Kingdom of God’ until we understand God’s holy principles.

Beyond understanding, the builder of the palace must have desire to work on the construction project and persevere until it is finished. We are called to work with God to build God’s Kingdom on earth. To succeed we must have spiritual understanding and a spiritual desire to persevere in discerning and doing God’s Will.

Where do we begin?

The gifts of spiritual ‘knowledge’ and ‘understanding’ are gifts of the Holy Spirit. It is the Holy Spirit, God’s Spirit of Truth and Love that enlightens our minds and our hearts to examine our lives to consider ‘what’s working’, ‘what’s not working’ and ‘what’s missing’. These questions alone can produce the wrong answers unless God is helping us through the power of His Spirit to see what He sees.

I believe the path of enlightenment begins with a desire to be HUMBLE and to acknowledge OUR NOTHINGNESS BEFORE GOD’S GREATNESS.

Think of yourself for a moment as God’s precious CHALICE. God desires that you be consecrated, devoted to Him. When God looks within you, His Chalice, what does He see? Does He see your virtues and your spiritual desire to fulfill God’s Holy Will?  Does He see that you are on the right path pursuing righteousness in every choice you make? Or does God see that you are selfish, carnal and devoid of virtues and on the wrong path?  If the chalice is full of sin and priorities that separate us from God, what needs to happen in order for that chalice to be consecrated, cleansed and useful to God in His plan to build His Kingdom on earth?

A true examination of conscience allows us to see what sinful choices separate us from God. Once we confess those sins, Jesus forgives us and purifies His Chalice.

“If we confess our sins, he is faithful and just and will forgive us our sins and purify us from all unrighteousness.” 1 John 1:9

Then as a ‘clean slate’ or an ‘empty, purified chalice’ God can begin to fill us with His Grace and His Holy Spirit to enlighten us to change our priorities and our choices.

I remember years ago buying my blind friend a cup. She told me she wanted a cup and she wanted it to be ‘black’ in colour. I laughed at my effervescent, joyful friend and asked, ‘why do you care what colour it is, if you can’t see it?’ Her answer was ‘I want it to be black in colour’. Ok, no problem I accepted her will and I bought her a ‘black cup’ and sure enough the first question she asked me was:  ‘What colour is the cup?’

If you had to choose one main colour to represent your life right now, what would it be? Is that colour representative of peace, joy, love, tragedy, pain, suffering, disappointment or hope?  Could it that God desires to make you, His chalice, into a ‘rainbow’ – a multi-colour arc of peace?

Wherever you are right now in your life, God wants to be part of it.   Your life is God’s masterpiece and it will be woven together by the Divine Designer IF YOU SURRENDER AND TRUST GOD.

God wants to build your life into so much more than you can begin to imagine. If your life feels like something is ‘missing’, then turn to God because He will help you to discover what that missing is and help you to fill the void.

Many of us like to think of ourselves as ‘in control’. But enlightened people understand the truth that only God is in control. ‘Human independence’ is a myth created by people that are unenlightened by God’s Truth. Acknowledging our human dependence on God’s grace is the first glimpse of divine light in our life.

God gave us a formula for personal and global transformation and this is the formula:

God said, “if my people, who are called by my name, will humble themselves and pray and seek my face and turn from their wicked ways, then I will hear from heaven, and I will forgive their sin and will heal their land.” 2 Chronicles 7:14

Let’s look at the formula closely and consider what it means:

Who are God’s people, called by His name?

God’s people embrace God’s love and God’s Holy Will. They will know we are Christians by our love! “Not everyone who says to me, ‘Lord, Lord,’ will enter the kingdom of heaven, but only the one who does the will of my Father who is in heaven.” Matthew 7:21

What does it mean to humble ourselves?

It means we must turn to God for answers. We must have a ‘listening heart’ and ask for God’s grace to reveal Himself to us and to communicate His Holy Will to us. We must acknowledge that without God’s grace we will never realize our human potential. “Jesus looked at them and said, “With man this is impossible, but not with God; all things are possible with God.” Mark 10:27

God asks us to pray.

What does it mean to you to pray?

Prayer is our lifeline to God and it must never be broken. For too much of my life prayer was to me about petitioning God in times of need. I ultimately realized that the way I prayed was problematic. I asked my husband one day ‘how do you pray?’ And he said, ‘I say thank you…thank you for you, thank you for the children, thank you for all we have.’ That conversation really humbled me because I was forgetting to say ‘thank you’. The other thing I was forgetting was to listen and try to hear God’s voice in my heart communicating what He wanted. I have learned over the last fourteen years what it means to try to ‘contemplate God’s Will’ and ‘seek His face’.

In a world of ‘instant communications’ we can reduce God into something of our own creation. We can pray with a view that God should answer us instantly, but if there is one thing I have learned it is that God has His own sense of time and it is usually quite different than ours.

I have spent the last fourteen years contemplating daily the Passion of Christ. Every day at 3 o’clock in the afternoon, the time Jesus died for us, I stop to walk with Jesus to the place of His crucifixion. I read the Scriptures and also mystical accounts of the Passion of Christ from saints and everyday I fall more and more deeply in love with my Saviour Jesus Christ.

Three years ago I moved into the ‘wilderness’, a remote country place where I have found deep peace. I would say the colour of my life is ‘green’ – peaceful and quiet.

When I moved into my new house I settled down on the sofa to pray when I suddenly realized that I was sitting at the ‘foot of the cross’. The house I purchased is a Timberframe house. Four giant crosses uphold a giant ‘church-like’ cathedral roof made of large beams. I am always sitting in front of a large cross when I pray. I feel like this house is a gift from God to help me to always keep my gaze fixed on the Crucified Face of Jesus.

Here’s a Secret about Seeking the Crucified Face of Jesus

When you look deeply at the Crucified Face of Jesus Christ you will discover who you really are. You will turn away from sin, because you will discover how very, very much God loves you! God’s Kingdom will be born in your heart in a sacred relationship where you will experience an understanding of God’s Will in Your life. When you meditate on the Passion of Christ, you will become confident in God’s love to keep you walking on a path of dignity and on that path you will find emotional healing, spiritual growth, hope, joy, peace and a few surprises.

The biggest surprise is that Jesus will become ALL in your life.

“We love because he first loved us.” 1 John 4:19

I invite you to join Christians all over the world that are stopping daily at 3pm (in our local time zones) to honour Jesus by remembering His Passion and by praying for one another. At this time seek the Crucified Face of Jesus Christ, remember how much He suffered to save you and listen to Jesus speaking to your heart. You will discover that you are His Heart’s Desire and He is Yours!  Learn more about The Mercy Movement here.  Happy New Year!