"As a priest, people often talk to me about their lives and their problems. Inevitably, I ask them how their relationship with God is. I can usually tell from their response if they have a long-distance relationship with the Lord. The language they use reveals that a deep, personal friendship with God is somewhat of a foreign concept. For example, they’ll say, “Well, I say my prayers at night before I go to bed,” or “I go to church,” or, my favorite, “I talk to the Big Guy in the sky; we’re tight.”
Great. Saying prayers at night and going to church is a wonderful way to deepen our relationship with God. But saying prayers at night and going to church does not necessarily mean that we have a deep, personal friendship with the Lord either. And as for “talking to the Big Guy in the sky,” that’s simply not Christian spirituality; it’s deism. In fact, therein lay the problem: too many people think God is “out there somewhere” rather than very close to them. |
Counselling LinksSpiritual ReadsBe Healed
(healing/anyone) Consiousness Examen (examen/advanced) Discernment of Spirits 1 (choices/anyone) Discernment of Spirits 2 (discernment/anyone) Discernment of Spirits 3 (discernment/advanced) Fire Within (prayer & stages/advanced) Fulfillment of All Desire (prayer & stages/advanced) Having a Mary Heart in a Martha World (union/anyone) Interior Freedom (freedom/anyone) In the School of the Holy Spirit (discernment/anyone) My Peace I Give You (victims of sexual abuse) Practice of the Presence of God (union / anyone) Searching for & Maintaining Peace (peace/anyone) Thirsting for Prayer (prayer & stages/anyone) Theology of the Body (humanity/anyone) Time for God (prayer & stages/anyone) Unbound (deliverance/anyone) Wild at Heart (men/anyone) |