Sure beats selling cardigans
“Sure beats selling cardigans!” Fostering Our Relationship with God by Patrick O’Sullivan SJ
Chapter 1: Enjoying our relationship with GodWhat is My Unique Relationship with the Father? What is that word or phrase that constantly gives me a taste of this relationship? This insight gives purpose and meaning to everything else in our lives – our personal vocation.
I often say to Gibson “It’s your own relationship with God.” So, what about my relationship with God? God is Love. God shows me how he loves me and how everyone around me loves me. God wants me to show his love for others through my thoughts, words and actions.
Operational Images of God (shadows or blockages that stop us enjoying the depth of the relationship) 1. If we meet God’s expectation. 2. If God meets my expectation. 3. God loves unconditionally. The perfectionist in me
Models of Redemption (either enhances or obscures our unique relationship with our Father and our capacity to enjoy it). 1. Jesus came to restore the moral disorder (done by Adam & Eve). 2. Colossians 1:20 “God was in Christ, reconciling the world to himself (not himself to the world), making peace through the blood of his cross”. Through breaking all the relationships God had given them, Adam & Eve found themselves bereft and vulnerable. Seeing their extreme vulnerability, God sent his Son to reveal his own vulnerability.
When vulnerability meets power, the result is alienation. But when vulnerability is met by vulnerability, the result is intimacy. The only way to intimacy is through vulnerability.
Friendship with Jesus. Love can be one sided but friendship cannot. Friendship is essentially a mutual affair which affects and changes both partners in the relationship.
Chapter 2: The Life of FaithChristian faith is saying “Yes” to life. In ordinary daily living: it’s accepting that life is a gift and has meaning – it’s a choice, a personal commitment we make.
Christian faith is saying “Yes” to Jesus and saying “Yes” to other people – both are inseparable. Hence, quality of our relationships and the quality of our faith go hand in hand.
Christian faith is supernatural – initiative always comes from God. Gratitude & Gift, Love & Forgiveness – go beyond human resources, can only be experienced through the power of the Spirit of Jesus.
Christian faith is sure & certain. But there is an element of doubt in it – ‘gap’ in our commitment, something ‘foreign’ can work itself into the gap. Questioning ourselves can deepen our commitment; questioning the object of our commitment – its reality – can have an undermining effect. “I really wonder if I like him” vs. “I don’t think he’s at all likeable.”
Christian faith is sure & certain. But there is an element of obscurity in it – something elusive about the presence of the Risen Lord. The Risen Lord can be close to people, deeply involved in their lives, without their being able immediately to grasp this.
Can I name the living experiences my relationship with God gives? What is the difference it makes to my life? What life-giving experiences can I talk about?
To be more aware who I’m and how I interact with others so as to be God’s instruments. Receive gift of forgiveness (to be free and able to move on) and peace (as and when I need it most).
Faith is not an ideology - judgmental, exclusive and divisive – a weapon with which to hit people over the head. Faith is compassionate and all-embracing – an invitation to freedom, love and mystery.
Chapter 3: At home with God – the life of prayer We will never tame God in prayer! We can never solve the mystery of God, but we can grow into it more and more. Use our heart, rather than our head.
Prayer – when we are alone with God, not doing anything, simply being alone with God. How do we express to ourselves that someone is important, that someone is real to us? To spend time with that person! We have to sustain moments when we stand still, naked and alone, in the presence of God.
Our Christian life is meant to be a pilgrimage in which these realities come more and more into our life - to the extent that the values of Jesus enter into our consciousness and become motives for what we do. To achieve that - PRAY!
I find myself becoming more aware. Example my recent thought about various paths of adoption - about every child being God's child, a gift to be given rather than to "shop" for it.
To sustain presence of God (to find God in prayer) = sustain our own presence = being alone (without being led by thoughts, moods, feelings etc) = non activity except speaking with God!
Chapter 4 More about prayer
1. The Father's unconditional love - Father's love for us is all embracing and unconditional
2. Surrender to God - let God be God in our lives, giving him the space to be Father? How?
a. spending time with him
b. talking to him
Chapter 1: Enjoying our relationship with GodWhat is My Unique Relationship with the Father? What is that word or phrase that constantly gives me a taste of this relationship? This insight gives purpose and meaning to everything else in our lives – our personal vocation.
I often say to Gibson “It’s your own relationship with God.” So, what about my relationship with God? God is Love. God shows me how he loves me and how everyone around me loves me. God wants me to show his love for others through my thoughts, words and actions.
Operational Images of God (shadows or blockages that stop us enjoying the depth of the relationship) 1. If we meet God’s expectation. 2. If God meets my expectation. 3. God loves unconditionally. The perfectionist in me
Models of Redemption (either enhances or obscures our unique relationship with our Father and our capacity to enjoy it). 1. Jesus came to restore the moral disorder (done by Adam & Eve). 2. Colossians 1:20 “God was in Christ, reconciling the world to himself (not himself to the world), making peace through the blood of his cross”. Through breaking all the relationships God had given them, Adam & Eve found themselves bereft and vulnerable. Seeing their extreme vulnerability, God sent his Son to reveal his own vulnerability.
When vulnerability meets power, the result is alienation. But when vulnerability is met by vulnerability, the result is intimacy. The only way to intimacy is through vulnerability.
Friendship with Jesus. Love can be one sided but friendship cannot. Friendship is essentially a mutual affair which affects and changes both partners in the relationship.
Chapter 2: The Life of FaithChristian faith is saying “Yes” to life. In ordinary daily living: it’s accepting that life is a gift and has meaning – it’s a choice, a personal commitment we make.
Christian faith is saying “Yes” to Jesus and saying “Yes” to other people – both are inseparable. Hence, quality of our relationships and the quality of our faith go hand in hand.
Christian faith is supernatural – initiative always comes from God. Gratitude & Gift, Love & Forgiveness – go beyond human resources, can only be experienced through the power of the Spirit of Jesus.
Christian faith is sure & certain. But there is an element of doubt in it – ‘gap’ in our commitment, something ‘foreign’ can work itself into the gap. Questioning ourselves can deepen our commitment; questioning the object of our commitment – its reality – can have an undermining effect. “I really wonder if I like him” vs. “I don’t think he’s at all likeable.”
Christian faith is sure & certain. But there is an element of obscurity in it – something elusive about the presence of the Risen Lord. The Risen Lord can be close to people, deeply involved in their lives, without their being able immediately to grasp this.
Can I name the living experiences my relationship with God gives? What is the difference it makes to my life? What life-giving experiences can I talk about?
To be more aware who I’m and how I interact with others so as to be God’s instruments. Receive gift of forgiveness (to be free and able to move on) and peace (as and when I need it most).
Faith is not an ideology - judgmental, exclusive and divisive – a weapon with which to hit people over the head. Faith is compassionate and all-embracing – an invitation to freedom, love and mystery.
Chapter 3: At home with God – the life of prayer We will never tame God in prayer! We can never solve the mystery of God, but we can grow into it more and more. Use our heart, rather than our head.
Prayer – when we are alone with God, not doing anything, simply being alone with God. How do we express to ourselves that someone is important, that someone is real to us? To spend time with that person! We have to sustain moments when we stand still, naked and alone, in the presence of God.
Our Christian life is meant to be a pilgrimage in which these realities come more and more into our life - to the extent that the values of Jesus enter into our consciousness and become motives for what we do. To achieve that - PRAY!
I find myself becoming more aware. Example my recent thought about various paths of adoption - about every child being God's child, a gift to be given rather than to "shop" for it.
To sustain presence of God (to find God in prayer) = sustain our own presence = being alone (without being led by thoughts, moods, feelings etc) = non activity except speaking with God!
Chapter 4 More about prayer
1. The Father's unconditional love - Father's love for us is all embracing and unconditional
2. Surrender to God - let God be God in our lives, giving him the space to be Father? How?
a. spending time with him
b. talking to him
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