A few weeks ago, one of my Facebook friends posted a quote
by a Saint or religious figure (for the life of me I can’t remember who it was
by). Honestly, I can’t even remember the quote, just the resonating effect it
had on me, it is funny how life works that way, what I can remember is the
quote referencing something about discipline being the foundation of any life.
After literally Googling “Catholic quotes on discipline” and
searching for about five minutes, I found nothing. I am truly sorry that I can’t
share it with you, my devoted readers.
In the weird way that my mind works, that mysterious quote
immediately took me to a country song, “Living and Living Well” by George
Strait. The specific line in the song that I thought of was one that goes,
“there’s a difference between living and living well.” That line, such a simple
idea, from a song that I have heard hundreds of times struck me.
Suddenly I had found myself contemplating whether I was
“living” or “living well.” Now obviously my thought process went a little
deeper, and it wasn’t long until I came to a conclusion, a conclusion that I
wasn’t ready to hear.
I realized that I had been going through the motions, maybe
not all of the time, and maybe not compared to other people, but I was not
living to the standard that Christ has called me to live.
I always like to use the analogy of running strait towards
the open arms of Christ and I admit it, at best I was stumbling towards Him
like a drunken sailor. I took a step back, looked at who I was, and hated what
I saw.
Now, I wish that I could share with you a debonair story
about how I immediately fixed my wayward style of living and started to run
into Christ’s arms again, but……… I didn’t. In fact I might have actually gotten
worse.
Looking back at it, I felt like Paul did during the year
after he had his revelation when he sort of disappeared (ok I’m being a bit
dramatic). I really struggled for about the first five days, constantly telling
myself that I would change tomorrow. As I am sure all of you know, that method
never works.
So I turned to prayer. I actually wasn’t even praying for
myself, I was praying for my good friends Brian Lee and Lucas Nieto who were
starting their pilgrimage on the Camino de Santiago. And guess what, I suddenly
had the desire to start making the pertinent changes in my life to spark the
new me. During my prayer I discovered the solace that I desperately needed.
I went to confession, started praying regularly agian and
slowly but surely I began to get back on the path towards Christ’s open arms.
Now, I am not claiming to be even close to perfect in my
pursuit of Christ, none of us are. What I ‘m doing is running, once again I find
myself running as fast and hard as I can into the open arms of Christ and it
has been good. At this point I would actually like to extend an invitation to
you to run with me. Run with me toward the open arms of Christ. Run, in the
same way that you would run towards a loved one that you haven’t seen in ages,
a loved one that perhaps you had thought to be dead. Run, run with me, ignoring
all of the possible distractions and evading the occasional obstacle, into
those loving, most loving arms of Christ. Like any long distance race it will
be tough, but trust me there is no greater finish line.
Oh and don’t be afraid to invite others to run alongside
you.
