This evening in Mass Fr. Linh told a joke about how a couple vowed to not make any impulsive buying decisions. They promised one another that when the temptation came they would say ‘Get behind me Satan!’. One day the woman came home with a beautiful dress that obviously cost quite a bit. She tried it on for her husband and though her husband liked the dress he asked her, “I thought we made a deal that when we felt tempted to make an impulse decision we would say ‘get behind me Satan!’…what happened?” The wife nodded her head, “Oh yes, I did he said it looked good from back there too!” Of course Fr. Linh was laughing before he could even get the entire punchline said. 🙂
Throughout Mass as I knelt and prayed I kept repeating to myself “Less of me, more of you, Lord.” When deciding what I should ‘give up’ for Lent or how to improve spiritually this is what keeps coming to mind – less. On Ash Wednesday I decided to minimize my life these next 40 days instead of giving one thing up. I also decided to take advantage of the moments I have to attend a Stations of the Cross or to read from the three different Lenten devotionals that sit by my bedside and most importantly to say as often as I can – “Less of me, more of You.”
However, though I went through the last three days doing decently well on all of these endeavors tonight I’ve already failed. I had a beer at dinner and when the kids begged for Marble Slab it didn’t take me long to hear ‘it looks good from back here’ and give in. Sure, I could’ve bought them ice cream and made the biggest sacrifice by staring at the chocolate and saying ‘NO”…but I was weak. 🙁
Now Fr. Linh’s joke isn’t so funny. Why is it harder to deny ourselves of the ‘little things’ and easier to walk away from the ‘bigger’ sins? How long will it take to realize that the little things add up and can harm just as much as one big blow. It might be worse that I sat there and listened to the Gospel of Matthew telling me the familiar tale of Satan tempting Jesus in the desert, imploring a starving Jesus to turn the rocks into bread.
Jesus said in reply,
“It is written:
One does not live on bread alone,
but on every word that comes forth
from the mouth of God.”
I think what upsets me the most is that the ‘me’ I was 10 years ago when I was so down deep in the dirt that when God pulled me up I was truly embodying ‘less of me and more of Him’ that saying ‘no’ to a beer at dinner and ice cream for desert during Lent would have been as easy as shooing a fly away.
Where is it along this journey that I became anorexic to the word of God?
Yes, I’m being hard on myself. It is what I need to do to whip myself into spiritual shape! 🙂 So I recall the Psalm during Mass as well…and praise Him for His mercy:
Be merciful, O Lord, for we have sinned.
Have mercy on me, O God, in your goodness;
in the greatness of your compassion wipe out my offense.
Thoroughly wash me from my guilt
and of my sin cleanse me.
In an odd way I truly enjoy this Lenten season because God allows us to take the extra time to focus on ourselves and where we need to be with Him which is imperative if He is going to do any work through us!
Blessings
Shannon