If loving God with all your heart means offering up to him your emotional self, and loving God with all your mind means cultivating a quiet mind brought into obedience to Christ, what does loving God with all your soul mean?

First, becoming justified. Then, sanctified. 

There is no topic more paramount than the justification of your soul. Through the life, death and resurrection of Jesus Christ, Satan, sin and death were conquered. And a pathway was opened wide and clear for this fallen world to be reconciled with God. Your part to play in this is a simple yet profoundly critical choice. The only choice that matters. Will you take the free gift of salvation offered to you by the sacrifice of Christ? 

I have an atheist acquaintance who once got into a friendly debate with me over this topic. He said if he had sinned against another person, he understood them taking offense. But why would some God somewhere care about what he'd done? He hadn't sinned against that God, so why does he owe that God anything? At the time, I was unable to answer him. 

A couple of years later, the answer came to me while listening to the message that Pastor Caleb Campbell was giving at Desert Springs Bible Church. Caleb said that when God created the universe he poured out his love into it. You can see the care and creativity put into all things, from the grandiose galaxy down to the veins of a leaf. God is truly the muse for every artist there ever was, inspiring all human creative endeavors from Day Six on with the immeasurable beauty of the universe around us. 

And no creation was more favored than mankind. We were given a soul, and animated by God's very breath. He made us in his image. Every day he walked with us in the Garden, wanting to savor his relationship with us. We were loved and cherished. 

But we invited evil here.

When you have a child whom you love and adore, and you raise them with great care, and then they choose to invite evil into their lives.... it hurts. 

If you think of it from his perspective, he has had to sit and watch evil inhabit and destroy from the inside out that which he loves and holds dear. Because he gave us freedom, as unconditional love requires, we had a choice. We made the wrong one. And he was most definitely the offended party. 

Once evil took up residence here, we got what Adam and Eve wanted. They knew the difference between good and evil. But I bet they regretted the choice. Yet they had no power to take it back. 

But God did not sit, victimized, and feel sorry for himself. He made a plan to get us back. He decided to send his son to become flesh and take on our punishment so that we could be reconciled to him again. So he could take back that intimate relationship. That is why Jesus Christ, the Good News for All Mankind, came to us. That is why he lived, that is why he died. He paid for our sins so we could be justified, evil could be eradicated, and all could be forgiven.

So if I have the opportunity to see that atheist acquaintance again, I now know the answer to his question. When you sin against someone's cherished child, you sin against them. When you sin against God's beloved creation, you sin against him. What mankind owed, and what Jesus paid, was an enormous debt.

If you have never been reconciled to the Father through the Son, I invite you to do that now. HE invites you to do it. It is only a matter of choosing to believe and trust in him. Of saying, "God, I have sinned against you, but I want to be reconciled. I want you to save me and dwell in my heart. Please give me the gift of salvation made possible by your son, Jesus Christ." 

Salvation and eternal life with God are a gift. You can only have a gift if you accept it. A gift offered to someone who refuses it remains with the giver. It's up to you to accept. The opposite of salvation and eternal life are damnation and everlasting death. That is why there is no choice more critical and no subject more paramount than this. Your eternity is at stake.

But God is not finished with you once you have been saved. Justification is the dawn, and sanctification is the rest of the day. Once you've let in the son-light, he begins a good work in you: bringing you to Christlikeness.

If God has saved us, aren't we done? Shouldn't we live our lives as we want, and look forward to eternal life? Paul asked the same question in the book of Romans:

And again in 1 Corinthians 6:12:

As well as Galatians 5:1:

Sanctification is the process of cooperating with the work of God in your life. It means that his goal of unity with you is also your goal. That his will in the world is also your will. The process is not an easy one, because the strongholds of sin and selfishness take a siege like no other to pull them down. But it is not your work. You can't remove even a single stone. The warrior responsible is God, and you are the prize inside that the enemy is hiding away. Your only job is to allow him to attack the stronghold. Let go of your attachment to patterns of sin, lies, and attitudes against the Spirit, and let him make you wholly new.

In the yoga community, there is a lot of talk about enlightenment. About the attaining of a state of being where you are free from suffering, free from the selfishness of the egoic mind, and perpetually united to divinity in bliss. The Yoga Sutras, which are often used in teacher training, explain the "steps" to achieving the goal. You could say it is a twist on works-based righteousness.

In Old Testament times, the people had the law to tell them what to do and not to do. If they could follow the law perfectly, then they would be in no need of salvation. But none of them could achieve that. So, they would offer sacrifices for their sins, giving a spotless, innocent animal as recompense.

No matter where you go, no matter the religion or creed you hold dear, there is this idea that if you follow a strict path you will achieve righteousness. You will find God. You will regain what we lost when we invited evil here.

But hang around on planet Earth long enough and you will discover what all human beings, reaching back through the ages, have already known: nobody's perfect. The systems we've erected set us up for failure. God is not attainable that way.

It is a good thing that human beings are not the only ones working on the reconciliation of God and man. We cannot attain God by scrambling to climb heavenward, but he can reach down and pull us up. The secret is the surrender of our desire to do it ourselves, to be the author of our own salvation. The secret is to let God help you.

He created us to be in perfect unity and everlasting relationship with him. He created us so we could be loved by him, love him completely, and love those around us unconditionally. Allow him to reach down and pull you up. Cooperate with him in this work of reunion he began in you.

Decide you will choose the best instead of the good: "'All things are lawful for me,' but not all things are helpful." (1 Cor 6:12)

Decide you will not be dominated by sin, but dwell in freedom: "'All things are lawful for me,' but I will not be dominated by anything." (1 Cor 6:12) "Do not submit yourselves again to a yoke of slavery." (Gal 5:1)

Decide to walk in newness of life, and let the dead stay dead: "...in order that, just as Christ was raised from the dead by the glory of the Father, we too might walk in newness of life." (Rom 6:1)

Did you ever notice that the pursuit of happiness is the goal of every human being? Deep down, achieving lasting happiness is the motivation for everything you do.

Rejoice, because happiness is what you receive when you cooperate with God. It is his goal for you. But he has no illusions as to what will make you happy and what will cause that happiness to last forever. He knows that when you are in union with him, you will be happy. That is what he created you for:

Joy, unending joy.

Peace that passes understanding.

Hope that does not disappoint.

Love that endures forever.

Faith that can move mountains.

Life, and life abundant.

And he has promised he will bring that work to completion.

Be encouraged, brothers and sisters in Christ. Putting sin to death in your life is a painful, long and trying process at times, but cooperation with God leads to rewards that far exceed that pain. Let his Spirit, alive in you, give you rest. Rely on his promises. Fight the good fight, run the race. Keep his words always at the forefront of your mind:

The vast majority of the human race is utterly given over to compulsive thinking. Whether they are playing out some fantasy, worrying over some imagined future, reliving a past event or simply trying to remember what they have to do that day, the typical person has a non-stop diatribe rolling in their heads. In fact, we spend so much time thinking about something other than what we are doing that it could be said we are on automatic pilot. We flit and buzz from place to place, and if nothing interrupts us, we will hardly notice the motions we are going through. We aren't really awake; we aren't really dreaming. It is a stupor and if we stopped doing it we wouldn't know what to do with ourselves.

The whole phenomenon reminds me of the movie Dune, where the members of the Spacing Guild, previously human in form, had so long taken in so much of the rare Spice that they had mutated. The Spice gave them the ability to fold space, that is move between time and space, which made it possible for people from various planets to travel great distances in an instant. But the price they paid is that they now were nothing but floating brains swimming about in large glass containers filled with orange smoke.

I invite you to quit being a floating brain.

The Master tells us:

But how do you love the Lord with all your mind? If God is the great "I AM", then he is not part of your imagination. However you may conceive of him, it does not contain even half of what he truly is. Not only that, but notice the present tense. "I AM." He's not the great "I WAS" or "I WILL BE" because the only thing that is real is the present. The past is a vague conglomeration of inaccurate memories and the future is fiction and conjecture. Only the present is real, so it makes sense that that is where He is. Of all the attributes he could have chosen as his name, he chose his present existence. But are we in the present? No, we are lost in the labyrinth of our brains.
The first step towards surrendering the mind to God, towards loving him with "all your mind", is to be where he is. Here and now.

The idea that you are your mind is quite common and a lie. Your mind is simply a tool. You are something much more splendid than all those thoughts that plague you - namely, a soul. Yes, your mind is a part of you, but your soul is what lives on when the mind dies.
Many of us long to connect in a more substantial way to God. We know that we are the temple of the Holy Spirit (1 Cor 6:19-20) and that the Master Teacher has said, "But when he, the Spirit of truth, comes, he will guide you into all the truth," (Jn 16:13). But if we never cultivate silence within ourselves, how will we hear his guidance over all the noise?

Jesus himself tells us how to do this in Matthew 6:6:

It can be difficult to quiet the mind, so that is why finding a meditation technique that works for you is so helpful. One of my favorites is to use a breathing verse. Take Psalm 103:1, for example: "Bless the LORD, O my soul, and all that is within me, bless his holy name!" As you slowly breathe in, think, "Bless the LORD, O my soul," and as you breathe out, "and all that is within me, bless his holy name!" Let your inhales and exhales be slow and even, and let the verse wash over your mind and clear away any thoughts that intrude. Invite God into the space you make.

But this is just one of many meditation methods. Here is a small sampling of some others:

• Focus on the breath
• Listen to the sounds of the world around you
• Focus on the body and any sensations it gives you
• Focus on a word you repeat to yourself, like "Jesus", or "Maranatha" (Greek for, "Come, Lord Jesus!")
• Focus on opening the heart

My recommendation is that if you are new to meditation, start off slowly. Try a couple of minutes before you start your day and before you go to bed at night. If you have a prayer and Bible reading routine, work those couple of minutes into the beginning of that. Take time to, "Be still and know that I am God," (Ps. 46:10).

But learning how to quiet the mind and be present with God is only half the equation. God is interested not only in the quantity, but the quality of your thoughts. Consider these words from the Master Teacher:

Jesus uses strong, striking language to convey how serious the sins of the mind are. But how seriously do we take them? It is easy to spend countless hours in the downward spiral of resentful, hateful thoughts and justify it because we believe the other person to be wrong. Or to let our lust lead us down a path of fantasy because we lie to ourselves and say we are sinning in secret. It is equally easy to claim victimhood as our identity, holding onto depression and despair like they are desirable. Christ died on the cross to set us free from slavery to such thoughts. We need to claim that victory!

You may long to connect to God. How can you hear what he has to say when there is a cacophony of thoughts in your mind? And how can he show you his good, pleasing and perfect will when it is your ego and its desires running the show? Love him with all of your mind by giving time to him in stillness and by putting to test every thought that arises. Then you will connect with the God who came to Earth so that you may be transformed, heart, soul, strength and -- by his grace -- mind.

In a culture built on independence, the word surrender isn't a positive one. And although independence is quite healthy in many ways, sometimes it can mask the human need for others. In all things we need balance, and when we refuse to ever reach out for help, we can do ourselves a great deal of harm. But no harm quite so great comes from stubborn independence as that of losing our souls. The very act of repentance and a surrender of our will to be subordinate to God's can be so counter-intuitive to some that they refuse to ever do it. It is like they conjure in their minds an image of putting up a white flag and giving in to the enemy. Yet freedom, another celebrated American virtue, is not possible without surrender.

Even for those who have taken the outstretched hand of God and found freedom in Christ, we hold back a total surrender of the self. Pieces of our hearts, minds, souls and physical bodies are left under our control; we don't want to face whatever fear or work giving them up might entail. But, we know, because of the conviction of the Spirit at home within us, that we are called to a total surrender. God wants our love in heart, mind, soul and strength, no holding back.

'Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your strength and with all your mind' Luke 10:27

If you look at the above verse, named by the Master as the Greatest Commandment, it can seem a little one-sided. But, from personal experience, I can tell you truly: with each bit of yourself you succeed in handing over, a flood of love comes back from the other side. A person fully surrendered to God is a person full of the love of God, who cannot help but spill that love onto all that he/she meets. A life lived abundantly is a life of surrender. Surrender is not only a positive word, but a word that can change your life in the most profound way possible.

In this four-part series, we will study how to surrender in love every part of the self. As Jesus said, "If you love me, you will keep my commandments" (Jn 14:15) and the Greatest Commandment should be foremost on the list. Our surrender of will to his perfect will is not always straightforward. When considering this topic, we usually dwell on the decisions we make. But it can be more subtle. It can be in the attitude of the heart, the thoughts inundating our minds, the disposition of the soul, and the way we treat our bodies.

Emotions are a compass for the soul. They are there to communicate with us whether or not we are on a path to life or death. Whether love or hate, peace or fear, hope or despair, they are expressing to us the depravity or health of our souls. We have a natural desire to be rid of negative emotions and seek out what would cause the positive ones--what is commonly described as the pursuit of happiness. And because of this, we have a chance at discovering God, the origin of good. Emotions, like much of creation, help us to achieve the purpose for which we were all created: unity with God.

Unfortunately, emotions get little respect in this society that has long been driven by logic and the left brain. They are considered almost as if they were a pest; like something to eradicate. The impression can be left that they have no use except to disrupt what would otherwise be a smooth-sailing life.

My daughter recently came to me with overwhelming emotions and an inability to deal with them. In trying to help her process them, I gave her this analogy:

Consider emotions to be like a classroom full of middle-schoolers--the most emotional creatures imaginable--and you are their teacher.  One by one they start to raise their hands, wanting to be heard. But there's not much time left and you want to get finished with your lesson. You are trying to ignore them.

• Fear wants to tell you she's not sure she can remember all this for the test.
• Anger needs you to know that the test is unfair.
• Urgency wants to go to the bathroom.
• Impatience wants to know what time they can all go home.
• Frustration feels like he will never understand what you're saying.
• Boredom wishes you'd talk about something interesting.
• Bitterness is still upset about the grade you gave her last time.
• And Hatred can't stand school to begin with.

Attempting to ignore all the upraised hands is futile. The more emotions are ignored, the harder it is to deal with everyday life. They get piled up and backlogged, and eventually cause some kind of breakdown--whether it is mental or physical. If the heart cannot be heard, its influence will leak over into a part of you which you cannot ignore. In the end, we have to deal with our emotions.
 
Society gives us self-help books, meditative techniques, psychologists, drugs, etc, to help us feel better about our emotions.  And it encourages ignoring the emotions by giving us an endless array of distractions on the television, computer, phones, tablets, etc.  Often people will fall into addictions to try and assuage their ailing hearts: drugs, alcohol, sex, video games… the list goes on and on. But like Paul said of love in 2 Corinthians 12:31, "And now I will show you the most excellent way."

Stop what you are doing for a minute and let each have their say, one by one.  And then, as you are hearing them out, make an offering of them to God.

I taught my daughter this meditation to help her deal with her overwhelming emotions:

It is important to let go of thoughts about the emotion's origin. When we get wrapped up in such thoughts, they generate more of the emotion we are trying to hear out. Thoughts are more capable of giving birth to negative emotions than anything else. There is a time and a place for talking things out so that you can avoid the situations that will cause more of the negative emotion. But that is not the exercise we are attempting here. We just want our emotions to have a voice so that they can be dissolved.

Some emotions are strong and deeply rooted. They may be from traumatic past experiences or long-held resentments and sadness. It may take more than one session like this for them to pass. But doing this for even a couple of minutes a day will eventually get you through them.

God wants us to willingly share with him how we feel. He knows all things, but he still desires us to share with him because we are his children. If one of your own children was never willing to share with you their feelings, would you not consider that relationship to be fundamentally broken? But we have a God who is not only a willing listener, but a healer of hearts.
So lay bare your heart before the Lord. As Proverbs 38:8-9 puts it:

And again in Romans 8:26:

And rest in the assurance that a surrender of the heart to God's love will result in healing, peace and joy.

After my conversion to Catholicism, I went through a honeymoon period in my faith. The Holy Spirit was content to woo me with many blissful and mystical experiences. My Father God was elated every time his baby daughter looked his way, and let her know. I was avidly looking for opportunities to meditate and pray. In my spare time, I composed prayers and spiritual writings out of an outflowing of adoration for Jesus that I could not contain.

At the time, my boyfriend and I were attending Our Lady of Perpetual Help Byzantine Catholic Church. It was the ideal place for someone new to the Catholic faith to gain understanding, since the pastor's heart was entirely given over to the work of the Lord. His name was Father Chris, and despite his many ailments, which usually kept him wheel-chair bound, when he got behind the pulpit to preach on Sunday morning he inspired, challenged, educated, admonished and conveyed the love of Christ to his parishioners. His caring leadership was a blessing to everyone he encountered, and his endurance of the pain that wracked his body was honorable and awe-inspiring in a Pauline sort of way.

A couple of years after converting, Brent and I were married. Because he was a Software Engineer and Albuquerque was not exactly a technology town, we ended up taking a job that moved us out of New Mexico. That also meant leaving Our Lady of Perpetual Help behind. And it was there that the trouble began for me.

Before continuing, I must caution you. I wish only to honestly tell my experience of what took place, and not to attack anyone. If you are Catholic, look at the following as an opportunity for ecclesiastic introspection. If you are not, please do not judge. Sin is present in every church and every denomination, because humans are present. Rather, take these stories as an opportunity to discern. Pray for those who are finding it hard to see God for all the distractions within the body of Christ. Pray that they find a place to worship where they can be fed and grow, and where they can reach out and serve. With the compassion and understanding of our Master, read on.

With our move to Colorado Springs, my husband and I began an arduous spiritual journey, searching for the right church. My Holy Spirit experiences seemed to dry up, and I found myself in the desert of my faith walk. This journey lasted ten long years, and through it all we longed for a drink of God's Spirit, or any sign that he was still out there.

Our first church in Colorado Springs was a Byzantine Catholic mission church.  It had the form of prayer we preferred, but the "why" of the worship had been misplaced.  The minister was endlessly wishing he was elsewhere, and the congregation was preoccupied with procedures and rubrics rather than the Gospel.  We finally were forced to make another choice, because the mission closed after several months. 

The next church parish we attended was Roman Catholic.  It loved to emphasize how "We are the body of Christ!" At first, this was a message that hit home and reminded all present how they need to actively reach out and play their role as a member of that body. But it began to get a little weird when months went by and the same message was repeated, without the actual person of Christ ever being mentioned. Were they ever going to talk about Jesus? Did the pastor forget that that body he was so fond of mentioning had a head? I caught on that the real point of the message in their eyes was that everyone should volunteer their time, talent and treasure to their church.

Things took a really sour turn one Sunday morning when it was time for the Gospel reading. The Gospel is a sacred part of the mass, and Catholics hold the reading in reverence. But, for some odd reason, as the lector started to read, a kid with a big boom box blasting music was making his way down one aisle. My husband got up to tell him to stop when we noticed a woman talking loudly on her phone, pacing around before the pulpit. Then, next to the sanctuary up front, we saw a big screen TV, and a kid playing a noisy video game.  The video game audio was piped into the church's sound system - as if the boom box wasn't loud enough.  It became clear that this was a skit to teach us how life distracts us from God. But it was ill-timed. If there is one thing Catholics understand, it is reverence for the things of God. The Gospel reading is too sacred to mar with the kitsch of a skit. My husband had us get up and walk out.

That event caused us never to return to that church. Instead, we hopped from parish to parish, hoping to find one that felt more like home. What we found was that no church wanted to preach as if Jesus and his resurrection were real. They wanted to talk about whatever was lighthearted and trivial, whatever was sure not to offend. And they seemed to think the mass needed fixing. It was much too old-fashioned, and so they endlessly needed to spruce it up. Furthermore, priest after priest gave off the impression that they weren't the ones running the place. They had given their leadership role to a committee of lay people.  These lay ministers clearly had no education about the liturgy and worship which they were butchering.

It was then that I became aware of an internal battle going on within the American Catholic Church between those of a more liberal mindset and those who were conservative. The liberals wanted married priests, women priests, and an endlessly re-invented, better mass. One with a rock band. They wanted to look and act more Protestant. The conservatives wanted their Latin mass back, but if they couldn't have it, at least they didn't want to mess with the traditional Irish sweet-song hymns and the general respect for the sacredness of the mass. This is an over-generalization, of course, but it was these kinds of attitudes we kept encountering. Everyone was more interested in pushing on the Church their personal agendas rather than growing in or spreading the Gospel. They thought that if they could just have it their way, the people leaving the Catholic church in droves would come running home.

What those people who left needed was Jesus. They couldn't find him in the Catholic church, so they left. If the Protestants are attracting huge numbers, it's not because of a great band and more modern service. That might get a person in the door initially, but what holds them there is when they encounter the Living God. Preach Jesus, and they will come! In fact, what I found to be so confusing was that a perfect opportunity to share the Gospel arose every mass -- after the Gospel reading! But time and again each priest would not even mention the words just read in scripture, nor related concepts, nor a sign of any personal faith in Christ. They'd talk about the crazy weather we were having or the latest Cosmopolitan article, but never the life, death and resurrection of Jesus Christ.

Eventually, life events took us from Colorado Springs to Phoenix, Arizona. We began to attend another Roman Catholic church there, but encountered the same watered-down, irrelevant message as we had in the previous ones.

The only respite came from a guest priest, Father Nacho, who would sometimes say mass.  Every once in a while, you encounter a Spirit-filled person whose very being emanates the triune God. This visiting priest was that way.  "A prophet," my husband called him.  He once announced at mass "I am hearing complaints that I preach the Gospel too often, but I say, I will not cease to preach it because you still don't understand it!"

We looked forward to the Sundays when he would preach, because we knew we'd come away from mass profoundly touched by the wisdom, mystery, and power of God. But, as all guests do, this priest left within the year. And because we had no other cause to stay, and in fact felt very disconnected from that community, we looked for a church home elsewhere. Said poetically, the color gray tends not to attract. True, it won't offend, but neither will it attract. It stands for nothing.

By this time we were experiencing a crisis of faith.  We desperately needed life-support from a pastor who understood our spiritual needs. We thought maybe it was time to try the Byzantine Catholic Church in Phoenix.  Perhaps it would give us a home, since our first positive encounter with Catholicism had been at a Byzantine church. Roman Catholicism in the Southwest had not fed us, so perhaps the difference lay in which Catholic rite you attended (for an explanation of Catholic rites, click here.)  

Instead, we found a church that cared more about the importance of upholding their cultural tradition than the message of Christ.  Our crisis need for our faith to be fed was met with the pastor starting every single homily with a bazooka joke.  My husband said that it was slowly turning his faith into a joke.  

Still, we tried to reach out to this community. At one point, I invited every young family there to a children's cookie decorating party. I thought it would be a good way to fellowship with them. But Catholics are notorious for avoiding fellowship, and apparently these Catholics were no different from their Roman counterparts. Not one of my many invited families showed. I ended up calling in all of the neighborhood kids, and made a party of it anyway.  I couldn't help but think of the wedding parable:

My husband's disillusion was intensifying.  Absent the Gospel message, he just couldn't stand to hear one more joke from the pulpit. I don't think it normally would have been a problem, but the accumulation of negative experiences was beginning to get to him.

This time, we attended a Melkite Catholic Church. Unfortunately, this church was caught up in the lie of a works-based salvation. One memorable homily was on the parable of the wedding feast already mentioned above.  The focus this time was on verses 11-12 which, if you recall, had one guest thrown out of the feast to "wailing and gnashing of teeth" because he had not worn the correct wedding garment. Well, the deacon was giving this particular homily, and explained how it meant that if you didn't wear a coat and tie to church, you were in grave sin. My husband later wondered aloud about how poor people obviously do not have enough money to spend time with God.

But the final nail on the coffin of us attending this particular Melkite Church came one Sunday when a woman in the front pew collapsed. She had been in a horrible car accident just a few weeks earlier, in which her husband had been killed. Though over 90% of her aorta was severed, they managed to save her life. So, to see her collapse was a cause for great concern. Her family in the pew around her quickly gathered near, and talking was going on. Everyone was alarmed. What did the priest do?

Well, her collapse had interrupted his homily. He faced away, and silently stared out a window while rocking back and forth on his heels.  This lasted long enough for an ambulance to arrive and take her away.  As the stretcher started to move down the aisle, he turned back to the congregation and said "Isn't it funny how I was teaching on patience, and here we are, having to be patient?"

No prayers were offered for her as she was wheeled out. Not one word of concern, nor even a glance was afforded her. For someone trying to be God's representative on Earth, this priest lacked the compassion of Christ so much that he couldn't be troubled by the incident in the least.

It should not surprise you that this started a period where we didn't go to church at all. My husband began to repeat the same jaded statement, "You know, we live on Mars." And when you'd ask him why, he'd say, "There's no churches on Mars, so we must be on Mars."

At first, our motivation for staying home was to save our children for growing up in an environment which called itself Christian, but preached something else. We thought they'd grow up to say "If this is Christianity, I don't want to be Christian."  Ironic that to preserve our children in the Christian faith, it was necessary to prevent them from going to church.

Our intermittent church attendance was finally punctuated with one last dire church experience.  Based on a recommendation, we attended yet another new Roman Catholic parish. We only lasted four Sundays. This new church had a tradition of waving their fists in the air during the Alleluia hymn - a slower version of the Arsenio Hall one-handed fist pump. We thought it was a bit strange and unreserved for Catholics to be doing such a thing, but we simply tried to ignore it. That worked until the Sunday when the priest made the whole topic of his homily about the fist pumping. He told his parishioners that people who refused to do the fist pumps were "people of fear." He called them, that is us, "Sadducees."  My husband was very offended at the message, and actually shouted out at the end of the homily "Don't call us Sadducees!"

In three separate and private conversations with that priest after the mass and in the days that followed, my husband was seeking an apology from the priest. The priest, in turn, wanted nothing except for my husband to understand the gravity of the crime he committed by speaking up during mass.  

My husband noted that the notion of Jesus over-turning the tables of the money-changers at church was entirely lost on this pastor. We stopped attending mass.

We worried for our faith. My husband struggled with believing in a God who didn't seem to be active in his own church. He thought maybe he was becoming an agnostic. Meanwhile, I began to sense the presence of God in yoga class and spent my time with him there. My whole yoga routine became worship of Jesus. In this way, the Holy Spirit seemed to be saying, "I am still here, do not be discouraged."

God sometimes chooses the strangest tools to bring you to where he wants you to go. For us, when he was ready to give us the church home we had been seeking for ten years, he used...

Google.

If I were to tell you I am an Evangelical Catholic, you might think it was an oxymoron. But truth can be stranger than fiction. In fact, I grew up a Missouri Synod Lutheran, and never thought I would be anything but that. But my life took an unexpected turn.

During my first semester of college at the University of New Mexico, I met and fell in love with a Catholic young man named Brent. I knew that one day we would get married and that when people decide to marry, it is not all that unusual for one to convert to the other's faith. But that is not the way it happened for me. I had no intention of becoming Catholic, and thought instead that eventually I would be successful in converting Brent to Lutheranism. After all, that had happened with a couple of the uncles in my family - why would it be any different for me?

But I was curious about Catholicism. I had a lot of misconceptions about their beliefs. Brent was very educated about his faith, so he passed on his knowledge to me. Even though this cleared up my misunderstandings and did a good job of explaining the reasons behind Catholic doctrines, it had no effect on my desire to remain Lutheran. Why would I change? The Catholics could believe as they wished. I was happy in my church.

Often times Brent would go to Confession, and I'd tag along and wait for him. I asked him about it, and he explained that Catholic priests claim to speak on behalf of Christ when they announce your sins to be forgiven. It grew on me. I wanted to hear the words, "You are forgiven," with my own ears. Then I thought that the closest thing I would get to hearing those words from Jesus would be to hear them from someone trying to represent Jesus. So, I asked Brent to take me to Confession.

Brent wasn't sure if I was allowed to go, since I wasn't Catholic and wasn't planning to be. But he took me anyway, and explained the situation to the partially bemused and baffled priest. After the entire line of people went through confession, I went to take my place - only to find the priest emerging from the confessional and beckoning me to meet elsewhere. He was a kind, endearing man with a sweet face. He told Brent, presumptuously, that I wasn't seeking confession - just counseling. And yet he engaged me face to face, which evidently is required for a first confession. He took me into the cry room at the church and sat me down.

I'm sure he was quite shocked when the floodgates opened. I had a lot of sin for which I still carried the guilt and shame. I dumped it all before him, and he realized immediately I was giving a genuine confession. He gave me the sacrament. The moment I heard the words of absolution (e.g. "...I forgive you of your sins, in the name of the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit"), I was filled with the Holy Spirit.

Because I had never had a spiritual experience like that before, I didn't know what was happening to me. All I knew is that I didn't want to leave the church. I sat down in the pew for a few minutes, but the priest approached us and said it was time to lock up. So, I was forced to go. Then Brent asked me how it went, but I said, simply, "Not yet."

In Brent's car, I sat staring off into space. Brent said it looked like I was either going to burst into joyous laughter or tears. When we got back to his apartment, he asked again how it went.

Finally I erupted in an effusion of joy. The desire to sing hymns of praise came over me. I began singing Christian hymns that I knew from my childhood. It became clear to me that I was experiencing the Holy Spirit. I (errantly) concluded that the Holy Spirit was exclusively for Catholics, and that they must be the One True Church. I decided that moment that I'd become a Catholic.

I had taken my first steps on an unpredictable, amazing journey - and I never could have predicted what happened next.

The year was 1990. My husband Brent was a twenty-year-old college student who hadn't yet met me. His friends Charlene and Harold were a young married couple who attended an Evangelical mega-church. Brent himself was Catholic, and this had his friends worried. They had heard a lot from their pastor and other church authorities about Catholicism. Did Brent have a personal relationship with Jesus? It was hard to tell with those Catholics. So, feeling called by the Great Commission itself, they invited Brent to their mega-church in hopes of saving his very soul.

Brent was aware of their motivations, but agreed to attend to show good will. He had no idea just how far the plot would go. After the service, per a secretly pre-arranged plan, they brought the pastor to meet Brent in the foyer of the mega church.

"Skip, we'd like you to meet our friend, Brent. He's a Catholic," they said.

Brent only had a split second to wonder why his Catholicism had been brought up before fire and brimstone started to be flung onto his head. The pastor began hollering at him phrases like, "Did you know that you worship Mary and think the Pope never sins? Did you know that you have replaced the Gospel with works-salvation? Did you know that your bowing before statues is idolatry? Did you know you believe that you eat God? Answer all this!" The barrage went on and on, as a crowd of some sixty churchgoers formed a circle around the two figures. Having never before considered or heard of such topics, Brent was confused and whimpered "...I don't believe those things."  The pastor flung a final stinging attack with slow measured words "Yes, you do!  You go read your catechism and tell me that you don't!"

Needless to say, Brent came away from that experience hurt. It kindled in him a desire to be able to defend his heritage, his church, or at least his spiritual self. Over the next ten years Brent gained the relevant knowledge. He studied theologians, historians, original languages, ancient Christian writings, and read the bible cover to cover repeatedly. He mastered the doctrinal distinctions between Christian churches, and the reasons behind those distinctions.

Throughout the journey, Brent had frequent opportunities for in-person or online discussions with Christians who had inter-denominational axes to grind. The objections and attacks he encountered were allegedly motivated by the quest for doctrinal truth, but what he found is that all too often the real motivation was just a love of war. Whether coming from Catholics or Protestants, too much of the debate was devoid of love. Brent concluded that most of these problems between Christians came from Christians serving themselves rather than serving God and his people.

Certainly we should feel called to challenge or correct our brethren (Pro 27:17, 1 Cor 5:12), but those precepts are subordinate to our need to accept each other in Christ and be one body. Read these verses from Jesus's prayer in the Garden of Gethsemane:

Indeed we are not fulfilling Christ's plea, and that makes it harder for the world to discern what Jesus had hoped for: "that you have sent me and loved them". In Brent's story, the titles "Catholic" and "Evangelical" are irrelevant. Animosity between and among Christians because of differences in doctrine abound, and it is not limited to one label or a subset of them. It is easy to see why a person might get caught up in such discussions. The desire to seek truth runs through humanity as a common thread, but in the end what truth really is can be hard to pin down. Absolute truth, in all its splendor, is only known fully by God himself, and although he has revealed a great deal of it to us, we still, "see in a mirror dimly, but then face to face. Now I know in part; then I shall know fully, even as I have been fully known" 1 Cor 13:12. So it is no wonder that we often come to different conclusions.

But we all agree on Jesus Christ as the source and cause of our salvation.

Earlier in the Prayer of the Garden of Gethsemane, Jesus tells us the purpose of his coming and how to obtain eternal life:
"Father, the hour has come; glorify your Son that the Son may glorify you, since you have given him authority over all flesh, to give eternal life to all whom you have given him. And this is eternal life, that they know you the only true God, and Jesus Christ whom you have sent" Jn 17:1b-3.

And that, my brothers and sisters, is the gist of it. It's what is important. It makes us one.

So, even though oneness is the sincere desire of the heart of the Savior--indeed something he prayed for as his last prayer on earth, while sweating drops of blood in his earnestness--we have ignored him. Instead, we have twisted something good -- seeking truth -- into something bad -- division. And not only division, but division made with dissension, rivalry and enmity, resulting in endless strife. All of which Paul describes as "fruit of the flesh":

Let me repeat that for you, "those who do such things will not inherit the kingdom of God". People who seek to condemn others for their beliefs don't get it. "There is therefore now no condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus" Rom 8:1. It is like they missed the second half of 1 Peter 3:15. They heard, "but in your hearts honor Christ the Lord as holy, always being prepared to make a defense to anyone who asks you for a reason for the hope that is in you" and left out, "yet do it with gentleness and respect".

Examine with me Paul's dissertation on the body of Christ:

As it stands now, we are the dismembered body of Christ. We do not suffer together--we make each other suffer. We do not rejoice together, we attack each other. We consider the "other types of Christians" as weaker and less honorable, but that does not create in us a desire to treat them with greater honor or give them equal care. We are like a dysfunctional family who has filed divorce after divorce. Is that how it has to be? Can we agree that Christ is more important than our disagreements? He is in the business of changing hearts. Nothing is impossible with God.

Where do we begin? Perhaps with looking at the gifts the Holy Spirit has given to each of us. I have in my lifetime attended Lutheran, Catholic and Evangelical churches. And while attending them, I have encountered and interacted with Charismatics as well. From each church, I have gathered a world of wealth, wisdom and knowledge that I treasure about the things of God. Here are a few examples:

• From the Lutherans, I learned of Jesus's love for me, developed affection for Bible stories and lost myself in hymns of unsurpassed beauty and depth.
  
• The Catholics were the first to impress on me just how unfathomable is our God, and I developed a reverence and awe of him. They also taught me the concept of the saints as family, how undeserved was the grace I have been given, and how if I were to explore the depths of God, I would never find an end to them.
  
• The Evangelicals made God intimate for me. No matter how huge and holy, they brought home just how close and compassionate he was. They taught me a love of the Word as a living force in my life. They gave me a heart for the unsaved and a desire to serve.
  
• The Charismatics taught me how to listen to the whisper of the Spirit moving in me and respond. With them, I embraced the freedom Christ died to give me.
  

Sure, we disagree. Did we really expect to understand all the revelations of God while we still live? Let us run this good race as a relay team, and finish victoriously. Only at the end of the race will we see truth clearly. But working together, we can show the world that Jesus Christ is from God, and came to give them life, because God loves them. Amen!

Our culture has reserved a special place in the imagination for unicorns. The unicorn and the concepts behind it reveal a deep spiritual perfection. A unicorn is a shining, splendid creature of beauty; the pristine picture of innocence; it is glorious but shy, strong yet meek; it is filled with grace--it encompasses all of the good and none of the bad. It even has the one thing were all looking for and have a near impossible time locating: a wealth of magic.

If you were to imagine encountering one somewhere deep within a forest, you would see how it would make everything around it seem dim in comparison. When it looked at you, you would see in its eyes an intelligence beyond your own. You would suddenly feel the fleeting nature of your mortality. You would know that its hidden life was the complete fulfillment of its purpose. That it lacked nothing.

Lets stretch your mind. Metaphorically speaking, your soul is like a unicorn. Somewhere deep inside, deeper than your hurts and past, deeper than your imperfections and consciousness, is an unwavering, immortal self. It was made to be perfect, and placed here to develop: "And we all, with unveiled face, beholding the glory of the Lord, are being transformed into the same image from one degree of glory to another" (2 Cor 3:18).

But unlike the unicorn, we do not seem to be constantly connected to this. We lack awareness of our worth, our purpose, and the divine. We are unbalanced. Stuck in a physical world, we are confused about what it all means and distracted by promises of "magic" that are only illusions. We do not have spiritual balance. We are spiritually starving.

How would it look if a unicorn became like us? It might be that it would end up on the couch, having lost its sheen and let its powerful
muscles atrophy, drinking a cheap beer and watching endless television. When my husband wants to inspire in my children a desire to become glorious, it's the image of the couch potato unicorn that he uses. How strange to imagine such a creature brought to such a state.

It is possible to be in denial of the spiritual so long that you are no longer in touch with it at all. It is possible to be very in touch with it, but not know. But, the most ideal situation is to know you are in touch with it and the source of it: God.

So how do we achieve this spiritual balance? How do we feed the spirit, as we feed the body? How do we become "enlightened", or discover our purpose? How do we attain glory, beauty, strength, meekness, grace and even "magic"?

Information on the topic can be found in abundance in the first chapter of John:

This passage reveals a "magic" that is not fake: Christ Jesus. And it tells us, on a very spiritual level, his significance. He is:

• the Word of God
• with God in the beginning
• the source of all created things
• the dwelling place of life
• the light of mankind
• unconquerable by darkness
• not recognizable by the world
• not received by his own
• the source of adoption by God
• flesh
• glorious
• grace-filled
• truth-filled
• the reason we have received grace upon grace
• in the closest relationship with the Father
• the way to know the Father

Jesus Christ, the Messiah, has the glory, beauty, strength, meekness, grace and even "magic" that we have such a hard time attaining. So, how to we get it, too? How do we become like him? The passage has already told us: "Yet to all who did receive him, to those who believed in his name, he gave the right to become children of God—children born not of natural descent, nor of human decision or a husband’s will, but born of God" (Jn 1:12-13).

Seek out Jesus Christ, and he will give you God. You will be born of God. Let him become the greatest desire of your heart because he is the one who can feed your soul. He will make your glory like that of the unicorn. You will become a reflection of all that he is. Your soul will live in its hidden purpose, united with the source of its life and immortality. And the longer you walk with Christ down the path of your life, the more when people look in your eyes, they will see something beyond what they have. Your eyes will reveal a life they've not touched, a truth they've not heard, an eternal quality they hunger for, an overflowing of grace they long to bathe in.

Get up off the couch.