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asy to take things out of context and in isolation the bible has counterbalancing messages throughout one of the classic examples is the admonitions to feed the poor and then paul s statement that says that if a man doesn t work he doesn t deserve to eat it is easy to pick one side and dig your heels in and apply that to everything when in fact jesus is talking about the less fortunate poor who either can t work or would likely desire to earn a wage if offered whereas paul is focused on a community of able bodied people who all need to do their part after mass this last weekend a friend of mine who knows i scrutinize finances and try to make sound financial decisions and plan for the future and he is the same way smirked a bit when asking me how d you like today s gospel i could tell he was tweaking me a bit and we engaged in it he was conflating planning with worry i disagreed with him and i think by the end of our talk he was agreeing with me i think to read jesus words here as some instruction to forego any and all planning is not only incorrect but it s actually counter to what he s trying to get people to do here which is to not worry as in don t be anxious my friend as we talked had the personal revelation that his planning is his way of actually not being anxious i agree with that perhaps more important good planning will help your loved ones not have to worry as much if i didn t plan for the future and didn t have my affairs in order it would cause grave headaches for my loved ones if something happened to me stress anxiety and probably a bit of exasperation and anger would follow i always remember a personal example from our homeschool group my wife was getting frustrated because they would schedule events and then they wouldn t plan them the leader of the group at one point remarked about how they didn t need to because the holy spirit just made it all come together at the end and somehow some way the events turned out fine while maybe this was true in its literalness my wife s observation was that she and a couple other moms always did 90 of the work because they would have been utterly embarrassed had everyone showed up to nothing so these three moms ended up feeling like they had to continue taking on this burden while the others extolled the wonder of the holy spirit bringing it all together there was finally a push for some structure and reorganization in the group that led to some rifts unfortunately i guess my point is if you think you re living the gospel by not worrying but your lack of attention in the name of not worrying leads to the anxiety of others then you are not properly disposed to what you re being called to do in my opinion we christians have struggled with this balance forever we are in constant conflict with the opposing ideas of the necessity of what we do versus what that means about our trust in god one can actually take this all the way back to the heart of arguments about predestination here s how i see it you should plan for the future and plan for contingencies we should do what we feel we need to do in prudent and responsible ways this is not lacking trust in god in fact god is likely calling us to do some of these things but planning and taking action should ease your mind and not burden it if you are not able to do everything you would like to do but you are doing what you can then you need at that point to not worry and trust in god if you are moving past prudence and trying to outsmart god by being ready for everything imaginable under the sun by relying only on your own wisdom then you are trusting in yourself and not in god if you ve planned for x and the unexpected y happens you need to trust that god will help see you through or that this suffering has a greater purpose if you are obsessed with perfection you need to relax and trust in god this covers a lot of areas from finances to married life to health to raising kids and so on one should try to make good health choices that may mean you ve decided to eat in a certain way avoiding some foods not because they bother you physically but because you re trying to stay healthy but at the same time if you are traveling or visiting and the food choice is not to your general health standards and you become obsessed with the idea that eating that burger patty is going to take 2 years off your life then you are not in balance that s worry and anxiety and something of a lack of trust if you feel like a store of food and water is a good idea and you take some measures and you sleep well then that s a good thing if you wake up every morning wondering what you haven t done in the event that x y or z happens and you are never comfortable with what you ve set aside or stockpiled then you are out of balance my wife and i actually were talking on saturday about the responsibility of raising kids the discussion turned to her concerns about them becoming godly persons their salvation and everything we may not be doing to make that happen i was agreeing that we need to do everything we can but we re humans and we will fall short and at some point we need to simply ask god to fill in for our deficiencies and that he is not going to abandon them to the wolves just because we forgot to do this thing or that thing in the overall formation of their faith it was almost as if that gospel reading on sunday was for us so you see i may be a planner but i m really not a worrier my wife is i m not speaking out of turn here she d say the same thing in fact she may well say that i don t worry enough and i say she worries too much we re both probably right if you do absolutely nothing then that certainly can be trust in god but you should also assess whether or not it s just simple laziness and whether your lack of concern is affected others it could be argued at times that i am lazy finally i offer my preferred analogy of our participation in life with god it s fine to recognize that god is in control as long as you don t use it as an excuse to eschew your obligations i m not the biggest fan of that phrase not because i think it s false but i think it s a bit misapplied to our purpose god is ultimately responsible for everything we are he created us has granted us our very life has given us our abilities and has single handedly opened the doors of heaven to us he has all the power in the universe to control every aspect of our lives but that doesn t mean he exercises that power over all of our thoughts words and actions he doesn t it doesn t mean he moves us like pawns on a chess board maneuvering us through every situation while at the same time maneuvering those around us he may well intervene on occasion because he loves us but the very fact that some of us end up sick or injured or dead is self evidence that god allows things both in and out of our control to occur that bring with them certain undesirable outcomes i acknowledge that god is ultimately in control to the extent he desires it and that he has the power of full control to the extent he exercises it he is also a navigator but not necessarily the navigator at all times since we have a say in the direction we go the co pilot analogy is also lacking a bit since it sort of relegates god to a secondary back up position in our lives i know that co can mean partnership and equality but that s usually not how co pilots are referenced there is a pilot and a co pilot it may be a better analogy to say i am god s co pilot i prefer the navigator analogy but with a twist if you imagine a ship with two rudders one large rudder for large scale directional movements and one rudder that allows quick reactionary movements along the broader path i see god as the navigator of the big rudder and we are navigators along the path we re on i think god moves us directionally where we are to go i think we need to trust and not be anxious about that direction but that doesn t mean all is clear sailing in a straight line we may need to navigate some rough waters or around islands or icebergs and what not as we follow our path we can still crash on the path god sends us if we aren t doing what we are supposed to be doing we have responsibilities to uphold to ensure that we get where we are intended to go and even that smaller rudder can ultimately change our direction if we continually push it in opposition to the big rudder god makes it difficult for us to move off the direction he has chosen for us but not impossible so don t worry about planning share this email a link to a friend opens in new window email print opens in new window print share on facebook opens in new window facebook share on x opens in new window x like loading filed under catholicism christianity faith god life opinion personal reflection religion theological thought and tagged anxiety catholic catholicism christian christianity faith free will god god is in control god is my co pilot gospel jesus jesus christ mass religion theology worry 1 comment feb 15 ninevah90 warning posted on february 15 2017 by the diatribe guy standard i made a comment on another blog i was a bit wary about i dared question whether or not it is wise for everyone to jump right in and do the ninevah90 program the response i received was actually not what i expected i expected to hear why everyone should be able to do it and that not embracing it fully is a sign of weakness which is all the more reason why you should do it but i received a lot of agreement basically what i said about it is that everything there is good i have no issues with anyone doing it but it s also a lot depending on where a person is in their spiritual journey it could be utterly overwhelming and perhaps even counterproductive to try and do it all we humans are fickle creatures and some have a tendency to become demoralized and give up on the whole thing if we fail to do every last thing i suggested that at least for some it may be a wiser course to stretch yourself but still make the additional devotions prayers and activities achievable i was happy i received such agreement in one respect but then i got nervous about whether or not i was just encouraging an attitude of copping out the following is a follow up comment i made that i thought i d reproduce here i wanted to make sure i clarify my comment a bit i guess i m just a strong believer in proper balance and i think we all get out of balance at times one way or the other and need to constantly self correct in no way am i saying that nobody can take on the full ninevah90 program nor am i saying one should easily or simply dismiss it because it s too hard nor am i saying that we shouldn t constantly challenge ourselves to do more than we are currently doing to take that next right step in our spiritual growth what i am saying is that we are all in different places on our spiritual journey and we all have different responsibilities in life that we cannot disregard or replace with another time consuming activity whether it is a holy one or not as an example a friend of mine a wonderful and committed catholic at one point in his spiritual life thought it was a good idea to try and do everything he read that other saints did and he was demanding his family do the same all were good things in and of themselves but the sheer volume of things he was doing and in turn asking his family to do became a real stress and caused problems in the family hours of adoration hours of volunteering hours of prayer attending this function and that function my observation was that i thought i fostered a better relationship with my kids and family by simply being at home and talking with them or playing a game with them yes we also incorporate prayer and other spiritual devotions into family life and i am not saying we can t do more we certainly can but he was not in balance and i could imagine even the good lord was saying the saint you are trying to emulate was single and a monk you can t do what he did go spend time with your family the ninevah90 thing is very good and it s a great challenge to take upon ourselves what we can handle and perhaps that one thing more that we feel we may need to help have god lift us up to accomplish it that s the next step but if one tries to leap over a tall building in a single bound from where they are now there is a risk that you end up a spot on the sidewalk i ve already seen someone on my facebook page lament that already on day 3 of the program he is undergoing a lot of spiritual warfare i have no idea what that means and it may very well be a true statement but i couldn t help but think or maybe you just took on too much if he s truly being attacked in unforeseen ways he needs my prayers if his view of spiritual warfare is that he doesn t have enough time in the day to fit everything in then i m afraid no amount of prayer will create additional minutes for him but hey i could be wrong i m reminded of some of the criticisms about catholics by some other christians about piling up words while this criticism is usually in response to devotional prayers such as the rosary and is completely unfounded there is nevertheless a risk that some people just believe that piling up devotion after devotion after devotion makes them more holy we risk getting out of balance the proper perspective of any devotion is that we are in a relationship with god that we are participating in the work of salvation that he alone made possible and that we are being his hands and feet to the world around us if we just do a bunch of stuff in order to satisfy all the daily requirements of a program and somehow think we re now a better person for it well there may be some truth to that in terms of a better understanding that you can do more and forming good habits but it could also become this obsessive action that erroneously leads to a belief that you re working your way to heaven so whatever you do make sure your life is in balance and make sure you know why you are doing it and why this is an important thing share this email a link to a friend opens in new window email print opens in new window print share on facebook opens in new window facebook share on x opens in new window x like loading filed under catholicism faith family life ninevah90 opinion religion and tagged catholic catholicism christian devotion faith ninevah90 prayer rosary sacrifice leave a comment post navigation span class meta nav span older span posts span follow the catholic diatriber enter your email address to follow catholic diatribes and receive notifications of new posts email address follow catholic diatribes join 89 other subscribers catholic blogroll 8 kids and a business amy welborn s blog catholic author biltrix catholic glasses hell burns the divine lamp links related to my music and cd catholic rock good or bad holy water on youtube joe at cd baby my bio my cd description news sites national catholic register new oxford review spirit daily spirit digest other 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