Keep the conversation going

By: Fr. Roy Cimagala

I am referring to our conversation with God. This should be kept alive always and we should try our best to find the appropriate ways to achieve it amid the changing circumstances of our day and despite setbacks, mistakes, failures, and sins we may commit.

We should be wary of our tendency to converse only with our own selves or with others. We need to talk to God. Without him, there’s no way but simply for us to be confused, tempted, and eventually fall.

For this we have to process the truth that our freedom that gives us independence and autonomy wouldn’t be true freedom if it isn’t latched onto the will and ways of God, who is the origin, pattern, end, and power of freedom. Dismiss the thought that our freedom is just a matter of what we want. That’s clearly a suggestion of the devil.

We need to talk to God and listen to him as intently as possible, because first of all our life just cannot be by our own selves. It is a life with God, whether we like it or not. If we really have to get real, then we should realize that our greatest need, one so indispensable that we would be nothing without him, is God himself.

Second, it’s God who takes the initiative to direct and shape our life, prompting us always about what to think, judge, say, and do. He can never be absent from our life since as Creator, he is always at the core of our existence. Being our Creator, he is still forming us to be what he wants us to be.

Third, ours is simply to correspond to his promptings and constant interventions by always orienting our attention to him, keeping ourselves in his presence, and repeating prayers that would convey how we are, what we are feeling and wanting, etc., at a given moment.

The thread of our consciousness should always have God in the middle. The moment we seem to lose him, we should react immediately by looking for him. Otherwise, we will be swallowed by the dynamic of self-seeking, and that is toxic to us.

And this possibility of simply playing the self-seeking game is very likely to happen, since if we don’t have the proper spiritual and supernatural bearing that we ought to have, there’s no way but be seduced by the many allurements of today’s world. There simply cannot be any resistance to them if we’re mainly guided by our senses, feelings, and the mainstream materialistic and consumeristic culture.

To keep the conversation with God going, to keep the music playing, so to speak, we really would need to rev up our faith and love for him and for others. We really need to see him everywhere and in everyone, saint or sinner, rich or poor. We should really be attracted to him.

If what mainly attracts is not God, then we have to realize there is something wrong, and we need to correct it. Perhaps, it’s because we haven’t spent time praying and meditating on his words and on his life as recorded in the gospels and taught by the Church. Perhaps, it’s because we don’t have a spirit of sacrifice yet, and so are easily overtaken by worldly things.

Our relationship with God just cannot go on if we do not do our part in developing and maintaining that relationship. To be sure that relationship is initiated by God himself. It started with God creating Adam and Eve and then talking to them, giving them instructions, etc., something that he didn’t do with the other creatures.

We have to do our part in keeping that conversation going.

Email: roycimagala@gmail.com