The Only Question

When it comes down to it, there's only one question we need to ask ourselves. Only one question. And it's our response that determines our actions, and our entire lives.

A friend of mine brought it up last week sometime. She was discussing a talk she'd heard a priest give some time ago, or maybe an article he'd written. I can't name the priest, or the source, or any specifics. But the response he gave stuck with her, and resonates further with me.

Someone had asked the priest how he could give up his whole life, a wife, children, possessions typical of the average person...all of that? How could he have made such a choice?

His answer was simple: "Because I believe God is who He claims to be."


I think that very line stopped my heart for a few moments.

I think that such a profound statement is designed to MAKE our hearts stop for awhile.

And what a profound effect those words, of that unknown priest, echoing through others, has caused! Here I am, days later, alternately questioning and answering this reverberating, resonating, deeply magnified echo.

Is God who He claims to be?

GOD is who He claims to be...

God is who He claims to be...

God is who He claims to be.

And I have to anwer that echo. I have to answer the response. I have to make a choice; to believe, or to disbelieve.

I can't disbelieve, because I know different. I have made the decision; God is EXACTLY who He claims to be. Jesus Christ is EXACTLY who He claims to be.

Because of the words of that one nameless, unknown priest, every time I look at a priest or see the title "Father", I recognize the response to the challenge; Is God who He claims to be?

And every time I look at a Sister or a Brother...the same response: their very lives for the Lord. Their very LIVES for God.

Because they looked at the promises of the world, and the promises of God. And we all know that the promises of the world are naught but shadows and puppets and feints. Yet the Word of the Lord is eternal. Our very being reveals that there is an objective Truth, there must be a Creator; God exists. And He stands in juxtaposition to the world and all its fakery, all its fallenness.

I'm in the latter. I'm in that world. I see the lies, the seduction, the false promises. Who hasn't?

In the end, we have to respond to the Question...is God who He claims to be?

For if He is...we have to choose.

If God is our All in All...we need to drop our crystals, for they are only rocks. If God is the Holy Spirit...we need to denounce practices such as Reiki.
If God is All-Knowing and All-Powerful (Omnipotent)...we need to abandon our pursuit of the Occult.

If we believe that God is who He claims to be, then we need to realize that the above practices break the First Commandment and offend God, for they are formally idol worship. For we cannot put our faith in rocks if God is God, and we cannot trust in Chi if the Holy Spirit is the One we desire to inhabit our souls, and we cannot seek knowledge from manipulated sources that manipulate us...opposing the Creator who gave us Free Will and asked us to TRUST.

If Jesus suffered and died on the Cross, for us, personally, knowing our lack of trust, we must believe that God truly loves us. Each and every one.

That understanding should change us. It should make us consider the pretty baubles in our hands in contrast with the sacrifice made for us; and we should drop the rocks. They cannot be cast upon another, and they cannot be held in order to heal us. A rock is a created object and contains nothing in and of itself.

If we place our faith in rocks, we deny God. If we place our faith in ourselves, we deny God. If we place our faith in money or power or career...we deny God.

Is God who He claims to be?

If He is...then why do YOU deny Him?

If God is who He claims to be...what stops us from giving Him our unconditional YES!?