Bishop's Column - Is Jesus really Lord of your life?

If I were to ask you to identify what stresses you most in life, what would your top three answers be? Just guessing, I would say most people would list things like their finances, their work, the health of their loved ones or their own well-being or perhaps other family issues. Furthermore, you might consider how it is that you deal with what stresses you? I suppose that might be particular to each type of stress that you experience. Some might try to avoid thinking about it, distracting themselves with other things. Others might medicate their stress with drugs, alcohol, eating, shopping, gambling or some other addictive behavior. Some may unload it on others (venting). A common answer among young people is sleep. While you may not have a typical response to the various sources of stress in your life, I would encourage you to do what Jesus himself did. We see this in the story of his agony in the garden. After the Last Supper, Jesus went out to the Garden of Gethsemane and went off by himself. In that moment he prayed saying, “Father, if You are willing, take this cup from Me. Yet not My will, but Yours be done.” St. Luke tells us, “Then an angel from heaven appeared to Him and strengthened Him. And in His anguish, He prayed more earnestly, and His sweat became like drops of blood falling to the ground.” (Luke 22: 42-44) In other words, Jesus spoke openly and directly to God, his Heavenly Father. In this moment, he models for us how we, too, should deal with what stresses us. We should tell the Lord; we should talk to him about it, honestly and directly. Note what then took place. It says, “Then an angel from heaven appeared to Him and strengthened Him.” Life is full of challenges! So many times these things fill us with fear and anxiety. When that happens, we should imitate the behavior of our Lord. We should turn to God— Father, Son and Holy Spirit—speaking to each of them in a particular way, asking for the grace we desire. In this way, Jesus is given permission to be Lord of our lives! But there is also another way in which Jesus desires to be Lord of our lives. He wants to have greater priority in our lives! If he is truly our Lord, then our relationship with Him should have first claim on us. Consider how busy our lives have become. As a friend of mine often says, “We neglect the important for the urgent.” We let just about everything take priority over the most important relationship any person can have: our personal relationship with Christ. Along with letting Jesus to be Lord of our lives comes the privilege of letting Him order our priorities. So many times we want God to hear our prayers but we don’t want him to take too much of our time, our energy and our resources. Let God be Lord of everything! There are many good things in the world that capture our interest, consume our time, and often require the support of our financial resources. But how do we prioritize them? More and more, people are using Sundays as a time to play “catch up” on all that needs to get done. Even though Sunday is considered “The Lord’s Day,” fewer people honor him with their worship or dedicate the day to him. Weekend recreation requires travel, costs money, takes up time and brings on its own fatigue. The Lord’s Day is supposed to be a day of rest. Instead, baptized Christians of all denominations have no time for God on Sunday and do anything but rest and re-create themselves. This may require a cultural shift, but that will only happen if we have an interior shift of our minds and hearts, if we once again fall in love with God and thirst for a personal relationship with Him. Truly, Jesus desires to be Lord of everything about us. There is nothing over which he may not reign. Our time, our relationships, our recreation, our finances, our sexuality, our thoughts, feelings and desires: everything should be subject to the Lord and our relationship with him. There is great freedom that comes when we surrender back to Him his rightful role as Lord of our lives. There is an order and a harmony, a sanity and a balance that His Lordship brings to our lives. Unfortunately, we are not teaching this to our young people today. Instead, all our busyness teaches them to simply pile more stress on their lives as though this is normal. My encouragement for you is to step back from your routine and examine it. What does your daily or weekly routine look like? Why are you doing the things that you are doing? What would it take for you to slow the pace of your daily life? This might require some hard decisions. It might mean saying no to some things so that you might have some time to breath, to think, to rest and to pray. We might start by asking the Holy Spirit for the grace to see ourselves as we really are: loved by God, surrounded by his grace and favor, confident in his mercy and open to his providence. Then we might ask him how to prioritize our lives, what we need to end and in what new directions we should take up. When Jesus is really Lord of our lives, there will be a new peace and calm that will mark our daily routine. When struggles present themselves —as they surely will—we will know immediately how to respond. When Jesus is really Lord of our lives, crooked ways become straight, difficult roads become smooth because we have learned to follow Him and not take the lead in stubborn self-reliance. While there is still time, let the Lord have his way with you—in everything!