It was a sunny, dark day

It became brightest as my bride and I hiked through the gorge as the sun sank low in the sky.

Being honest with God

Dear Lord, my heavenly Papa, I'm weak and afraid. Even though I've renounced it as a lie before, I have a hard time fully believing that he wasn't right. Sometimes I'm more afraid of missing out on incredible pleasure than I am of not living according to Your plan for me. I know that's a lack in my faith, and I repent of it, and renounce doubt. But I'm not leaning on my faith, nor cowering in my weakness. I'm leaning on You, the only Daddy who has never let me down.

A great example for me

A saint who struggled greatly with doubt is one whose witness is very helpful for me. Teresa of Calcutta went decades without sensing God's presence in her life, and persevered in living out the vocation she'd received.

Transforming (phase 4) - Jesus appears to his disciples behind closed doors – Divine Mercy Sunday (step 29) - session 2

John 20:24-29

I have written on multiple occasions about my namesake (though he is not central to all of these linked posts). I tend to be gentler with him than those who are so sure of themselves that they consider "doubting" to be among the worst of vices.

A deacon friend of mine has a take on this which is also more kind to Thomas. Suppose a group of your friends tells you that they've had an encounter with the risen Lord, but continues to act in the same fearful and perhaps even disobedient way that they had been acting before? They allege that Jesus, whom you'd just seen die (okay, there's no evidence that Thomas was close enough to actually witness his death, but stay with me) two days before, had risen from the dead and appeared among them. They tell you that he said "As the Father has sent me, so I send you," but you see them still huddling in a closed room, carefully locking the door as anyone enters or departs so that no one can burst in and arrest them, too. They aren't acting as if the one they've followed for the past three years has sent them forth; they're protecting their safety rather than putting their lives and reputations on the line to boldly proclaim what they had witnessed.

Wouldn't you doubt the veracity of their testimony, too?

(Thanks, Jon Danner, for this idea, which I've fleshed out just a little.)

So perhaps Thomas wasn't the only doubter among them. Maybe his doubt contributed to their own: if they couldn't convince this fellow disciple, then no one else would be likely to believe them either. Maybe their doubt aroused his: if they weren't any bolder than this, how could the news be true? Maybe their doubts were symbiotic. But Jesus addresses their doubts in a way that encourages us to this day: Blessed are those who have not seen and yet believe. (29b)

Maybe one of the people to whom Jesus is referring here is his mother! I was thinking last night before prayer group how, after his resurrection, Jesus seems to have appeared only to those who needed reassurance - and perhaps his mother never wavered in her belief - or formation. This would be the best reason to disagree with St. Ignatius' conclusions regarding the inevitability of the risen Jesus appearing to his mom.

But certainly Jesus is also referring even to those in our own day who believe in him without the confirmation of some wondrous sign. We need to be careful not to dismiss these, in a couple of different ways, out of some sense of pride: "God doesn't work that way anymore," and "My faith is strong enough that I don't need to see a miracle; let those who are weaker than me flock to apparitions (etc.)," can be prideful dismissals both of the work of God today and of those who may be sincerely seeking him with a pure heart. That said, there is something to be said for those who have such security in him that they don't long to be witness to or recipient of such an incredible event and who do not envy those receive that gift, but simply believe that whatever gifts and reassurances God has put in their own life are sufficient to glorify him in the ways he desires for them.

That was way longer than I expected it to be.

Transforming (phase 4) - The risen Jesus appears to Mary and to the other women (step 28) - session 4b

John 24:1-18 (cont.)

This is a narrative we can see ourselves in.

What do you mean his body isn't there?? And off they go, with the presumably younger John outpacing Peter. Even given the latter's denial of Jesus, John still defers to him with regard to entering the tomb. (How odd that the RSV refers to the cloth covering his head as "the napkin.")

It occurs to me that John's statement that he saw and believed does not speak at all to whether Peter believed. Perhaps John didn't feel qualified to speak about what Peter believed in that moment, because he didn't experience what Peter thought and felt as he did his own thoughts and feelings. As for the disciples returning "home," or "to their homes," I'm pretty sure this is whatever was passing for home in Jerusalem, rather than returning to their homes in Galilee.

Did they return there in order to bear tidings of what they had seen to the other disciples? Or were they still uncertain what to share, even though at least one of them believed?

I wonder what it is like for those who receive miracles in modern times? If it is something like our friends' daughter whose hearing was restored, there isn't too much to doubt: she couldn't hear before, and now she can. But some healings are not so obvious, even to the recipient, right?  And even if you're certain, knowing how to share would take wisdom.

Transforming (phase 4) - The risen Jesus appears to Mary and to the other women (step 28) - session 2c

Matt 28:1-10 (cont.)

So they departed quickly from the tomb with fear and great joy, and ran to tell his disciples.- (8)

Can great joy and fear coexist? I think it can. As a new first-time parent I probably felt both at the same time. Athletes who get their first major league call-up likely experience some amount of the two together.

What are the women afraid of? That it might not be true? That they won't be believed? That it might indeed be true?

Don't we have the same fears?

Then Jesus said to them, "Do not be afraid; go and tell my brethren to go to Galilee, and there they will see me." - (10)

Doesn't Jesus say the same to each of us. Don't be afraid. Go share the news!

Transforming (phase 4) - The risen Jesus appears to Mary and to the other women (step 28) - session 1b

Mk 16:1-11 (cont.)
Now when he rose early on the first day of the week, he appeared first to Mary Magdalene, from whom he had cast out seven demons. She went and told those who had been with him, as they mourned and wept. But when they heard that he was alive and had been seen by her, they would not believe it. - (9-11)

Though he doesn't say so explicitly, this appearance to Mary apparently happened after the women scattered following the appearance of the angel instructing them to tell the disciples that Jesus was risen from the dead. Even though Jesus had started preparing Peter, James and John following the Transfiguration (9:9-10), the news was too great for the disciples to believe.

I can understand their skepticism on multiple grounds. First of all there was the emotional turmoil they'd just experienced, seeing their hope crushed by Jesus' crucifixion. I can completely understand their hesitation to put any further hope in him. Further, there was the intellectual resistance. They had seen him raise Jairus' daughter (5:22-43), but he had been alive to do it. Or perhaps they didn't fully believe that the girl had indeed died. (Limiting myself here to St. Mark's gospel for examples.)

I struggle with far lesser elements of faith than Jesus' resurrection. I assume it's true, and still doubt the full implications of that assumption with regard to my own guilt. If this story were being told about me, approaching the 20th anniversary of my worst day and describing Jesus' role in my own life and my forgiveness in him, perhaps a neutral observer would write, he would not believe it.  But I'm trying to, and asking the Holy Spirit to help me to.

Lord, I believe. Help my unbelief. (9:24)

Transforming (phase 4) - The risen Jesus appears to Mary and to the other women (step 28) - introduction and session 1a

Actually, St. Ignatius includes "his mother" before "Mary" in the title of this step. Even though no such appearance is documented in Scripture, he considered it impossible that Jesus would fail to comfort his deeply grieving mother.

I wonder, when he entered eternity, did he learn that he was correct or mistaken? I find it odd to believe that such an appearance would fail to be captured by either St. Luke, who documented so much of Mary's role in Jesus' Incarnation, or St. John, who included her presence at the cross. But since "the other disciple" had taken her into his care, and was presumably the eyewitness providing this testimony so that we may believe, we may be confident that Mary was fully aware of her son's resurrection. Since all links on the Step-by-step Retreats website to the Manual for the retreat are broken, including the one for his meditation on Jesus' appearance to his mother, for the present I will forgo any further consideration of St. Ignatius' point of view on this.

On entering this step I see that I should consider each Scripture four times throughout this phase. If I had been aware of this earlier I would have done the first one this morning! I will attempt to follow this pattern for future sessions, as I can see that this will provide an opportunity for a variety of encounter with Jesus in each of his appearances.This will also keep me from feeling that I must cover all desired aspects in one sitting. So my plan for each iteration is to read each passage in full, and to pick one or two particular thoughts on which to focus my attention. (Since I missed this morning, I'll double up now.)

Mk 16:1-11

And he said to them, "Do not be amazed; you seek Jesus of Nazareth, who was crucified. He has risen, he is not here; see the place where they laid him. But go, tell his disciples and Peter that he is going before you to Galilee; there you will see him, as he told you." And they went out and fled from the tomb; for trembling and astonishment had come upon them; and they said nothing to any one, for they were afraid. - (6-8)

Pope Francis shared a wonderful insight of an insight we might take from the angel's instruction to the disciples through Mary Magdalene, Clopas' wife Mary and Salome. Galilee is where Jesus and most of the disciples were from, and where his ministry started. By directing their return there, Pope Francis suggests that they are being told to go back to where things began. There they were to reevaluate every aspect of their time with Jesus - perhaps even of their lives - in the new light of his resurrection.

I find his reference to "his disciples and Peter" significant. Some interpret this as a nod to Peter's role as leader of the church. I wonder if it might just be because his denial of Jesus might cause him to consider himself not to be a disciple any longer. The angel is indicating that Peter is not to exclude himself, and perhaps explicitly indicating to the disciples, if Peter had already confessed to them, that they are not to exclude him, either.

In fact, I find the inclusion of Peter's denial in all four gospels one of the most important validating elements in all of Scripture. If this were a hoax, would the writers have included such a disparaging account of one of the "cult's" preeminent leaders? It would require a remarkable degree of insight into human psychology for them to do so, one that is largely missing from modern cults even after an additional two millenia of learning about human nature.

My final thoughts on these few verses. They fled and were deeply afraid, and this does not so much appear to be fear of the chief priests and temple authorities as of the news itself. As a result, none of them appear to obey the angel's instruction at this time. But perhaps they did not understand him to be an angel. Nonetheless, their fear and uncertainty cause them not to immediately go and tell the disciples the tidings they have been told.

Short poem in the dark

Huddled in the sleepless darkest before the dawn
Isolated in my grave bed and my still, always brokenness
Not daring to hope in resurrection or life
Desperately grasping at  straws: might the light of the world show up?

Conforming (phase 2), Jesus Heals: To be Free to be Able to Choose - AtaDc (step18), session 6

And they brought to him a man who was deaf and had an impediment in his speech; and they besought him to lay his hand upon him. And taking him aside from the multitude privately, he put his fingers into his ears, and he spat and touched his tongue; and looking up to heaven, he sighed, and said to him, "Eph'phatha," that is, "Be opened." - Mk 7: 32-34 (full reading, 31-37)

I have always imagined this healing as taking place among the crowd. In my mind's eye, I saw Jesus and this deaf man surrounded by a throng of observers as he healed him. Today I notice the words at the beginning of verse 33: taking him aside from the multitude privately. There were a number of other healings which Jesus performed in private, too. Therefore the purpose of them was never spectacle.

Throughout this step we have touched around the central reason for each healing Jesus performs without explicitly stating the two most fundamental facts about them. Each of these miraculous healings was temporary; eventually, their recipients grew old, became sick, or encountered an accident in which their body ceased to live. Therefore purpose of every corporal, passing healing which Jesus performed in the gospels and provides today as the comparatively rare miraculous answer to prayer - rare lest it might seem mundane or capricious - and the true lasting miracle that results from them, is the permanent healing and restoration of our souls, either for the recipient of the physical miracle or for one or more witnesses to it. I don't know all the reasons why God has healed the hearing of Anna, our friends' daughter who had never heard from birth without the use of hearing aids, and then not well. But whatever other purposes God may have, he has used this to bolster my own faith in times when I am prone to doubt.

And he charged them to tell no one; but the more he charged them, the more zealously they proclaimed it. - Mk 7: 36

At first reading this seems an ungrateful response to the restoration of one's hearing. In rereading, "they" appears to refer to the multitude throughout these verses.

Conforming (phase 2), Jesus Heals: To be Free to be Able to Choose - AtaDc (step18), session 5

Fear seized them all; and they glorified God, saying, "A great prophet has arisen among us!" and "God has visited his people!" - Lk 7: 16

It seems an appropriate response to the raising of a dead man. It seems to me that our approach to the inexplicable is neither fear nor praise, but skepticism. Maybe this is a good thing, in moderation, like most good things. I know that I tend to seek rational explanations for things insofar as seems reasonable: I tend to think that most near-death experiences are dreams, that most prayers for healing are answered through medicine or the body's recovery mechanisms. Still some things are clearly beyond these sorts of explanations. My friends' daughter's hearing loss, which she'd had since birth and for which she has always required hearing aids, was restored in an instant at a healing prayer service. My other friend had a tumor simply disappear from her body between the second time it was imaged, indicating that it had grown, and when they went in shortly thereafter to remove it.

Perhaps science will one day explain all such phenomena, and I've no quarrel with those who insist on giving it a chance to. I believe, though, that God works through both the mundane and the miraculous. And I trust that my prayers which are not answered in the way I desire serve his will in whatever way he chooses to answer them instead.

But even when the obviously miraculous does occur, it's purpose is far greater than the miracle itself. The widow's son eventually died again, but God's plan is to bring us to eternal life.

Conforming (phase 2), Jesus Heals: To be Free to be Able to Choose - AtaDc (step18), session 3

Two healings in one session, and so much to consider in them. Lk 8, 40-56

First, Jairus is one of the few among the religious establishment whom we are told is willing to accept that Jesus might have come from God. We are given no indication that he puts his standing at risk by coming to Jesus to beg for a healing for his only daughter, but we can imagine it might be the case, but it's still fairly early in Jesus' ministry so perhaps the opposition to him among the religious leaders had not developed as of yet. Plus, this event appears to have happened in Galilee, and Jesus' chief enemies seem to have developed around Jerusalem.

Before we get very far into that story, Jesus, progress to Jairus' home is interrupted by the woman with the hemorrhage. I think there is a lesson for us even in the interruption: God is not so single-minded as we are. He can be working in multiple ways at the same time. (God, I pray that you are working in both my daughter and my son-in-law, both of whom desperately need to be made whole.) Just because we might have undertaken a specific Lenten project, we should not expect God to limit himself to working in us on just that one thing.

The desperate faith of both the woman and Jairus are on display in this reading. Sometimes when we are desperate we, too, gain a faith far greater than we have otherwise. At other times, we resign ourselves to just muddling through whatever may come. Still, such faith is itself a gift of God, and I am convinced he works in the ways that best serve to glorify his name, sometimes in miraculous ways, at others through the gift of perseverance.

A final observation concerns the skeptical scorn with which the crowd greets Jesus as he arrives to raise Jairus' daughter. It reminds me much of the spirit of the present age, as we polish our intelligent rationalism. Yet Jesus continues to work in marvelous ways in the lives of those who trust in him. I can't help but wonder if those who scoffed at him before he raised her then afterward gave him credit only for realizing that she was "not dead, but sleeping." We give up our doubts begrudgingly.

I know better

I know I'm supposed to know a better Answer. I know I've professed to.  

But lately I'm finding my father's path pretty damned compelling, and my Answer pretty elusive.

A good, decades-long friend recently shared about a strong Christian he's recently heard of who struggles with this, who manages to persevere in Christ despite his challenges. I'm strengthened, encouraged a bit, to hear of it.

Conforming (phase 2), The parable of the Kingdom of Christ (step 7), session 5

Jesus answered, "You say that I am a king. For this I was born, and for this I have come into the world, to bear witness to the truth. Every one who is of the truth hears my voice." - Jn 18, 37

Sometimes I hear the voice of God pretty clearly. When he tells me that he has given me the gift of faith, and that I am to be patient with those who do not so much have it, it can be unmistakable guidance. Yet at other times I feel as if I am not hearing him at all.

Perhaps, though, this is due to my tendency to find and to make my own way, to cling to my own desires rather than God's wishes for me. I struggle to fully trust that God is real and therefore that his plan truly is better than my own.

They cried out, "Away with him, away with him, crucify him!" Pilate said to them, "Shall I crucify your King?" The chief priests answered, "We have no king but Caesar." - Jn 19, 15

How often do we live our lives, make our decisions, with an insistence that "we have no king but . . . "? How often do we want to put the voice of Jesus to death rather than heed his call? I believe it is because we don't believe in his Resurrection, and therefore in our own. In this case, of course we will recognize no authority but our own.

People sometimes let Pilate off the hook here, suggesting that the Jews provided the impetus for Jesus' crucifixion, and that is somewhat accurate. But the Jews had no power to carry out their wishes except the one they exerted. Perhaps Pilate ultimately acquiesced to their request because they gave him what he wanted in return: they pledged their fealty to their occupiers.

Our faith is not the means of our salvation

"Today you will be with me in paradise." Jesus does not reject any who turn to him. At times we turn to him with little faith, at times with a mixture of faith and doubt when we are more sure of the doubt than of the faith. Jesus is not fastidious about the quality of the faith. He takes what he can get, so to speak, and gives immeasurably more than he receives - Fr. Richard John Neuhaus, Death on a Friday Afternoon

I can't speak for anyone else. As for me: I am almost always certain of my doubt, and am almost never so certain about my faith. Every word of encouragement I offer others in the faith is also an encouragement for me.

Fr. Neuhaus is going to go on, in these next few pages, to encourage us not to look to our faith, but to our Lord, and that is exactly right. My faith will always be insufficient to save me, except insofar as it is a gift of God that is sufficient in his mercy and grace. Yes, God is eternally in the business of making poor exchanges. He takes our meager, flawed offerings and gives us his perfect infinite self. So yes, I will continue to be more aware of my doubt than certain of my faith, and I will continue to trust completely in God's grace. After all, it is time to be done with the illusion that we are in any way deserving of what God wants so much to give us despite our inability to deserve it.

The epidemic

I saw two completely unrelated Facebook posts last night that both underscore a growing trend. My nephew posted a link to an article lamenting singers who blow out their voices by using them inappropriately at too young an age. A younger friend posted a link to a video with the latest AMAZING marriage proposal. (Now that girl is really lucky, right?)

The trend is the lengths to which we must go in order to feel truly special. It takes fame, worldwide uniqueness.

We live on a planet with over 7 billion people, increasingly connected by the internet. If we only feel truly special by comparison to others, and especially if the standard is singular uniqueness (I suppose that's redundant), it's going to be pretty tough to get there.

But even to a lesser degree, the issue of taking our value primarily from comparison with others has become a rampant problem. When we don't believe - or struggle to believe - in God, we are unable to find our value simply in relationship with him. The Creator of the universe loves me!

(Oh, but there's nothing special about that: he loves everybody!)

Habit and inertia, or faith and conviction?

Last night I ended up with an unexpected time of sharing and prayer with a lone prayer group member who arrived just as I was leaving. I knew that the four other regulars wouldn't be there last night; three were out of town, and my wife had taken a phone call from the last of them shortly before I got home from work letting me know that he wasn't going to be there. I didn't know whether anyone unexpected might show up, though this was the one person who I thought might. The thing is, when she does make it, she is consistently, significantly late. But since my own prayer time has been too lacking lately, I figured I would take advantage of the opportunity to simply enter into the Lord's presence in prayer and praise for a while. I'd picked a time when I would pack up and leave if no one else had arrived, but it wasn't hard and fast. It was more a matter of wanting to stay at least that long, and if I stayed longer because of how the prayer time was going, that was fine.

I prayed the rosary, as we do starting a half hour before our formal start time, lifting up a number of prayer concerns. As I entered into praise and worship time, I especially lifted up my incarcerated friend and his wife, praying that the Holy Spirit would unite and uplift their spirits with the joy of praise in God's presence, as well. They were so instrumental in my having this ministry, and it is so hard to see them dealing with what they're presently up against. After I was done singing and playing, I took some time to thank the Lord for the blessings of the past week, then read through the gospel for Sunday. I will confess that I shortchanged this, in part because of wanting to check all of the gospels for elements of the Stations of the Cross, which I did while I had my bible open. I then spent some time in intercessory prayer for a few concerns I hadn't thought to lift up during the rosary. When I checked the clock, it was about 5 minutes later than the time to which I'd committed to God that I'd stay. So I packed up and carried my stuff out to my car.

And along came the other prayer group member that I'd thought might be there.  Being honest with myself, I had a moment of annoyance. I was looking forward to getting home and taking care of a small chore that needs to be done.  Still, I waited for her to park, and it was clear from the few minutes of sharing that she needed to talk at more length and just be in touch with God's presence for a while. She has probably been too removed from her spiritual walk each day, and as we are prone to do, had begun to wonder about God's plan for our lives and whether our choices really make a difference.

So we went back into the building and talked for a while. I won't share her details, or my opinions. But I found myself reaffirming for her my belief that God really is at work in and through the circumstances of our lives, that we get to make decisions along the way to trust in God's plan or not, and that we need not spend too much energy or anxiety worrying about whether we're getting the details of our individual decisions along the way right. We aren't going to derail God's work; God has already worked our decisions into his plan of love for the world. Yet our decisions are no less important because of that: the best thing for us is always to act in concert with a desire to do God's will. It is like Merton prayed: we don't know what pleases God, but must believe that the desire to please God does, in fact, God. There was a great reading in yesterday's Office of Readings from St. Bernard that expresses a related thought. Of course it is impossible for us to return God's love in any sort of equivalent measure. What we offer in return will always be paltry compared to God's love for us, and yet offering what we can of God's love back to him is the best we have to offer.

And somewhere in the course of things, I also talked about my spiritual exercise from last week, reminding myself that God always provides for what I need, and if I perceive any lack then it is because either that thing is not a need or God is in the process of providing for it.

Anyway, an hour later we had talked and prayed, and I think she felt touched by God's presence again in our time together.

And somehow, in that moment, everything I shared came forth as if I haven't had the exact same doubts and questions myself. I guess maybe we all do, and we each need someone to reassure us from time to time, to reinforce for us what we must accept by faith. But as I mentioned last night, of this I am certain: even should it ultimately turn out that I am wrong about everything that I believe, there is no other road which I might choose apart from this one that has any potential for leading me to be the best person I can be.

A suitable sacrifice

"A sacrifice is the giving over of something that has value to the giver . . . " - Dr. Tony Evans

Just for the record, I don't often listen to Dr. Evans' program.  His preaching style just doesn't suit me, and sometimes I think his theology is just a touch off kilter.  He certainly is enthusiastic, though, and I find that there are nuggets he shares that God uses to direct my thoughts very differently from what Dr. Evans may have intended.

That's the case with the program I heard about half of last night.  I'm taking this quote (well, maybe it's a paraphrase) completely out of context, though Dr. Evans was careful not to imply that anything that we do obliges God to act in a particular way toward us.  But this quote got me thinking about what I consider valuable that I might offer to God.

For in sacrifice you take no delight
Were I to give a burnt offering you would not be pleased
My sacrifice is a contrite spirit
A humbled, contrite heart You will not spurn - Ps 51: 16-17

What God desires from me is my trusting obedience. That's often the hardest thing for me to give. I usually know what I (think I) want, and it is often at odds with what Scripture and the Church tell me are God's desire for me.  Sometimes I fall back into the trap of thinking of God as a stern parent who wants to keep me from having fun (I'm pretty sure that this isn't what Jesus meant when he said that we must be like children!); at such times it can be hard to believe that what God desires for me is greater than what I want for myself.  Yet if I have any faith in God at all I must believe this about him.  So when I want my own way, when I don't see the harm in my own desires - or even perceive possible harm in choosing God's revealed way over what I think or the world says would be better - well, I believe that to sacrificially subject my own will and wisdom to God's pleases him more than any other thing I might offer. Further, when I do truly do that, I will withhold nothing else from him.

Challenges to obediently trusting that God knows and reveals what is best for us - for me - come in many different forms. In our increasingly sexualized world, the beautiful sexual expression that God has given us is taken out of context more often than it isn't, and we're encouraged to think of ourselves and others in ways that we were never intended to think of most people. In our increasingly material world, we're encouraged to disregard the selfishness of purchasing our next creature comfort while our brothers and sisters throughout the world struggle against starvation, war and oppression. In our increasingly technologized world (to coin a phrase), we're encouraged to eschew simplicity and humility and embrace the latest scientific marvels and all that comes with them.  In our increasingly ambitious world, we're encouraged to put advancement and experiences ahead of relationships.  etc.

The gifts of coming into God's presence, acknowledging that He is so much greater than we are (praising him!) and just spending time with him, and then of truly connecting with those he has put into our lives, become neglected as we get wrapped up in investing ourselves in our temporary physical world at the expense of our spiritual lives. I'm not talking here about shirking the legitimate demands which our lives and the people in them place on us, which we may also resent as an imposition on us, but of carving out our time with God first so that we might recognize and respond to those demands with wisdom and insight. Instead, we often view this as another demand on our time which we resent rather than a gift from God which he wishes us to give ourselves, too.

And then there is the challenge of how to encourage others to see the nature of such decisions without trying to impose those decisions on them, and without thinking ourselves superior in some way because the specifics of their struggle is so different from our own.

Well, all of this could turn into a rant or a lament instead of the reminder God wants it to be for me to come spend some time with him . . .

Discernment

When we think God might be asking us to do something, it's a good idea for us to consider some basic questions to help determine which of the three possible types of influence - godly, worldly, or evil - is really at work.

• Do I want to do this thing?  If so, it might be my own desires rather than any leading from the Holy Spirit.
• Will I take pride from this thing?  Here I'm talking about more than feeling good about an important work. Rather, could my reason for being drawn to this be that people will think highly of me? It isn't wrong for people to think well of me, but it isn't good for that to be my motivation for choosing what I do. But this also carries a trap: I should not specifically choose (or not choose) to do a thing because I think it will provide evidence of my humility.
• Is there any possible conflict of interest that might bring benefit to me or give the perception to others that I might be benefiting in some material way from this ministry?
• Will this thing take away from things that I should be doing instead?  Here's a trap I fell into "early and often" - as they joke about how one should vote in a corrupt democracy - in my faith journey. I threw myself into ministry opportunities without much consideration of how they would affect my family. Particularly, I must sincerely seek to know:
• How does my bride feel about this, and why? It isn't that I should never do anything that she doesn't agree with, but in a marriage that is equally yoked, one's spouse's dissension should be a major red flag to take a much closer look for unmistakable evidence of God's direction and to reach true consensus before moving forward. Also, my partner will often have insights into what I am really up to that I might be hiding from myself.
• Is where I am spiritually consistent with this thing I'm being asked to do? We cannot fake our  spiritual standing for very long, and attempting to do so merely provides us with great opportunities to scandalize the Lord.
• Do the people who are asking me to minister in this way know what they need to about me?  Have I kept anything from them that might affect their impression that I am the right person for the role they have asked me to fill?
• Are there any clear signs that I should, or should not, serve the Lord in this way?  

So after I check in with my beloved one more time, after putting before the Lord the one area in which I believe I might otherwise remain spiritually vulnerable (and how timely this article is in that regard), after verifying that the other members of the leadership team have considered my background (of which they were already aware), it looks as if I am going to be accepting an invitation to serve on the leadership board of CREDO.  

I do not want to do this. But I believe that I should.