He Is Not Safe But He Is Good
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He is not safe, but He is good.
One of my favorite scenes from the Chronicles of Narnia is when Susan first learns about Aslan, the Christ figure. Mr. Beaver tells her: “Aslan is a lion, the Lion, the great Lion.” “Oh” said Susan, “I’d thought he was a man. Is he – quite safe? I shall feel nervous about meeting a lion.” “Safe?” said Mr. Beaver…”Who said anything about safe? Of course, he isn’t safe. But He is good.”
God is not safe because God is not primarily concerned about our physical or earthly good. He is chiefly concerned with preparing you for Heaven by making you like Himself.
And that, in fact is precisely why we are afraid of God. We fear God as long as we know His priority is getting us ready for Heaven while our priority is to maximize our experience on earth. And when these two priorities conflict, God is not our ally. He is not safe to be around until we want what He wants and He wants to make us fit for heaven.
How can we test whether our priorities are right? Well, what do you fear most? Or what makes you angry? Does your worry or anger come financial concerns, how to protect your wealth as a source of security? Or does your fear and anger find its source in politics or the potential loss of freedom and control. Or is it the earthly good of your children or even maximizing this world’s comforts?
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To be a secular person means to be “of this age.”
It means to give too much attention to this short life that is only meant to be a passage way, and too little attention to Heaven and eternity.
How can we become less worldly, less secular? By investing in those things that are most like Heaven – those things that are eternal and everlasting: prayer, friendship, truth and beauty.
First, Prayer.
Heaven is the deepest friendship with God. So the first most important way God wants to make us ready for heaven is by prayer – by friendship with Jesus here on earth.
The St Teresa tells us “prayer, in my opinion is nothing else than a close sharing between friends; it means taking time frequently to be alone with him who we know loves us.”
Friendship takes time together, talking, listening and just being together. The best way to develop friendship with Jesus is to set aside time to talk to Jesus honestly from the heart, and then to read His life in Matthew, Mark, Luke and John. Then think about it and talk to Jesus about it. That is where we build a friendship with Jesus.
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Family Friendship and Love
Heaven is not just you and God – it is the Communion of Saints - a deep everlasting friendship between all those in heaven. Therefore, we can’t get ready for heaven alone. We need each other – we need a team.
Teams come in many sizes and flavors. And you can be part of many teams.
Teams are people who share the same goal – they want to get to heaven and they want to help each other. It can be just one other person, a husband and wife, or friends or siblings. It can be the whole family, or a bunch of family and friends. Your team or teams are people with whom you share life, you do stuff with and your talk and in some way you integrate your faith and you do this regularly.
I have lots of teams, small and big. My wife Sandy and I are a little team. Sometimes our small team expands with our adult kids. My friend Jack from Jerusalem and I are a team. We talk on WhatsApp about life and the scenes of the life of Jesus in the Holy Land. I have another team of friends with whom we meet the first Saturday night every month for drinks, desert, good conversation and the Rosary. Archbishop Naumann and I are another little team – it’s a good combination of baseball, good conversation and the Rosary. I have another team with my parents – they’ve been a good team for a long time.
God wants us to get ready for Heaven by family and friendship on earth. That means we need other people with whom we share life and integrate our faith and pray together. If you don’t have a team – tell Mary, and she will get you one. Until then, Join me tonight at 7pm central time HFSOF Face-Book page Live and pray the Rosary with me – I’ll be your team for now.
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We get ready for Heaven by Contemplating the Truth
One of the good things we need to be happy is knowledge and truth. Truth means knowing reality. That is why we love to know what is. That is why we have such a strong desire for the news, podcasts, blogs, and shows. The mind was made for truth like the stomach was made for food.
Many people eat junk food, which destroys their body, likewise, too many people digest junk information that destroys their mind.
Junk information means ideas that are not true, they are groundless, suspect, polarizing and transitory. They are not the timeless truths we were meant for.
What kind of truth were we made for? The truth about who God is and what He has done for us. That truth is reliable, urgently relevant and it is timeless, it is the truth that nourishes our mind with what it needs.
When I have good real food in the house, I eat less junk food. Likewise, when I have a good book at hand, I digest less junk information on my phone or computer. So, every time you are tempted to eat junk information – get a good book so you have something better to eat that will actually nourish your soul.
Get a version of the Bible you like to read. I like the 1966 Jerusalem Bible hard cover.
A book by C.S. Lewis. He gives the most clarifying and entertaining vision of Christianity. Try The Great Divorce, or Mere Christianity or the Screwtape Letters or the Chronicles of Narnia.
If you like podcasts, then get Fulton Sheen’s Catechism on podcast.
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The discipline of Beauty as appreciators and creators
When was the last time you felt, “Wow that is beautiful” instead of “That was fun or nice”? Just as we need truth we also need beauty. Beauty is the recognition of some important spiritual truth in material form. Beauty is about bringing you to the heart of reality (to the heart of God) through your five senses. We were made for truth and goodness embodied in sight, sound, taste, touch and smell. There are three forms of Beauty:
1. Patterns expressed in music, dance and decoration
2. Functionality manifest in architecture, and culinary
3. Representation – through stories and pictures
What are very practical ways of developing the discipline of beauty as appreciators and creators?
Appreciate the beauty of nature by going outside and taking a walk at sunset and twilight; or look at the stars at night. Be a creator of beauty by planting some flowers or trimming up a bush or tree.
Be an appreciator of good music and the create by singing in the car. I especially like to put my earbuds in and sing when I’m at the gym. I sound great – to myself.
Appreciate beauty by reading a good novel like the Three Musketeers, or The Count of Monte Cristo or The Man on a Donkey. Create beauty by writing and sending a real letter – you know the one you write by hand on paper and put in an envelope.
Do something to make your home more beautiful, something to give it more order and more surprise – paint a wall.
Prepare a meal with real food. Cut up the vegetables and make something from scratch. I make the most amazing pancakes from scratch.
Sports are great beauty.
Play catch with your kid or grandkid.
Shoot hoops for 30 min and think.
Play golf
Go target or clay shooting.
Appreciate something beautiful through your five senses and create something.