With God In Us, No Life Pressure Can Destabilize Us

What does ‘being filled with God’ actually look like in real life? Can we recognize such a person filled with God? The reason I am asking is because, to live in this world, is to be subjected to so many pressures of life on a daily basis. It happens that we think that God is not present when we are being pressed on from every side or attacked. But, with growth and understanding, we come to realize that these pressures are in our lives for a reason and for a season. They come to form us; to reform us, to mend and heal us; and they can be uncomfortable, even outright painful. As one of St John's Society monks wrote: "It’s like in Physical Therapy, the practitioner massages; presses and compresses those areas that hurt the most to facilitate healing." God knows how best to shape us. He is our maker after all. How do we navigate these pressures of life? Do we seek to remove these obstacles that pressure us? Or learn to be comfortable facing them? The words of Paul to Ephesians direct us to Jesus’ way: Being filled with God through Holy Communion. Paul paints a picture of the stability we get from God’s love in Christ and prays that, we would not only understand, but also know the breadth, the length and the depth of the love of Christ for us, so that we may be filled with all the fullness of God. Meaning: with God in us, we discern that it’s of no use to try to remove these life pressures, because now we understand that God’s plan for us includes them. The central issue becomes: “Are we ready to completely place our trust in God, even in our darkest hour?” Paul recognized the weakness of our inner spirit, which often makes us lean towards what our flesh wants, so he prayed, that we would be strengthened, by the power of the Holy Spirit, so that Christ may come and dwell in our hearts by faith. The feeding of the 5,000 was a sort of preparation, a hint of what was to come. Listen to this: The crowd sat down, Jesus took the bread, gave thanks and gave it to them: Signs pointing to Holy Eucharist. As they were being reminded of how their ancestors were given manna by God in the desert, they also were being fed the bread from heaven in the same way. But their hearts were still far from the Lord: Very much like our hearts today. We complain about things that put pressure on us. Their ancestors also complained about pressures of life: hunger, they craved Egyptian food, food from their slavery days; even after God rescued them miraculously! How forgetful we can be, of what God has done in our lives! Was it hunger that was putting so much pressure on them that they grumbled against their leader Moses and God? What is it that is the most pressing on you lately, and causing you anxiety? These life pressures can be tyrants on us; they order us around and prompting us to act quickly in the flesh without much thinking and consideration; they push us to the limit of our patience, but we can control them/ defeat them by the word of the Lord and our faith in Jesus Christ who says to us: “Dwell in me as I dwell in you,” let the power of the Holy Spirit guide you in every decision you are to make. Don’t pray for the removal of these pressures, because they are excellent teachers in our lives, and lead us to what we truly need: Christ’s help and victory. We have to learn to face these life pressures courageously with Jesus in us. In the face of a challenge, the apostle Andrew courageously responded to Jesus with a small faith but genuine. He came with some skepticism in his mind: (Feed all these people? One man’s picnic food?) and still he said to Jesus: “There is a boy here with five loaves of bread and two fish” Jesus accepted the offer. You see, at the Eucharist, we give thanks for what we have, and the resources from God are more than enough… Jesus is that bread of life from heaven to us who believe. He said: “The bread which comes down from heaven, that one may eat of it and not die... and the blood of the lamb that cleanses us from all sin.” Jesus made it a way for us to be victorious when we are filled with the fullness of God. We are strengthened and empowered to serve Him and to trust Him because God is always in control. Amen.

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