JESUS AND I HAVE THE SAME PROBLEM: How does one communicate with God, who has divine nature?

It seems that the most complex problems always have the most straightforward answers. Actually, God and I do not have precisely the same problem. Jesus had to learn how to communicate his mission as the ransom for many humans. My problem is to try to demythologize what He is saying in terms of the totality of what my life is; the only way I can make sense. I have long discontinued the impossible practice of trying to prove anything about God, Christ, Church, or my personal beliefs. I have accumulated what the Holy Spirit suggests to me (when I am not too proud to accept it) and applied it to the already accumulated choices and experiences of who I am. I must keep reminding myself, as did St. Benedict in Chapter 7 of his rule on humility, that the first step is “fear of the Lord.” This is God you are trying to sit next to on a park bench in the middle of winter. I don’t tell God anything or have to prove anything. All I have to do is sit in silence and solitude in the presence of the Sacred and wait. I use the Cistercian systematic approach to contemplation, one of many methods, to go to the place no one wants to look (inside me) and wait. Matthew 6:5.

God’s problem is that, because of the original sin of Adam and Eve, our types (or maybe even anti-types) of what it means to be fully human, God has to communicate with us, not as an equal (this was the sin of Adam and Eve) but as God. The only way Christ chose to tell us about what our minds could not comprehend through reason alone was to use parables and similies. The Prodigal Son, and the Parable of the Mustard Seed, are two such examples.

John 20:30-31 is my “go-to” inspirational quote about why Scripture is there. We must use Scripture as the primacy of knowledge about what it means to be fully human. My problem is that, as with any other human, I do so with the totality of whom I am when I read these stories. Being a Lay Cistercian, one of my “takeaways” is that I must constantly convert my false self to replace it with Christ’s love. I realize that I must do it each day. It is more important than my marriage, my children, my job, or even my religion. “Seek the kingdom of heaven first, and all else will be given to you.”

It takes work to keep myself focused on Jesus as my center. I am not suggesting that all I do is pray all day and only think about Jesus. What it does mean is that my life becomes a prayer of praise and glory to the Father through, with, and in the sacrifice of Jesus, using the power (energy) of the Holy Spirit. I don’t consciously think of that all the time, but Faith is informed by my reasoning so that I can try to become fully human with the help of God’s energy.