The Sons of Thunder

Well, we are pretty lucky this week, because Father is doing a series of audio presentations and discussions this week. That means that we had and evening Mass yesterday, have another one today, and one will be available on Friday (I don't think we'll make it on Friday, as my MIL is having a going away party for her exchange student that leaves on Sunday!) Neither one of us is up for two hours about Luther after Mass...particularly since we'd have to decide who got to stay at church, and who got to take the squirrely girls home!

Anyhow, Father's homily last night was very interesting...and a chunk of it spoke to me about our current situation with hubby's job.

Of course, the reading was James and John wanting to be seated at the right and left sides of Jesus when he comes into his kingdom. Father pointed out that they didn't even ask, they mostly demanded...they told Jesus "this is what you can do for us!" rather than asking Jesus "what can we do for you?". Of course, so often we tell Jesus what he can do for us, but don't think to ask what we can do.

Beyond that level, Father talked about gifts. We may ask for spiritual gifts, but if we are not using the spiritual gifts that we already have, why should we be asking for more? Even if we look at physical things, we (particularly Americans) have a bad tendency to always want more. If we are going to do something, we often go buy something to get the project done rather than making do with what we have. We probably already have something that will work almost as well as what we could go out and buy, but we tend to go buy things instead.

From my own experience, I see this a lot...in both us and people around us. I grew up in a family where my dad wouldn't be able to find something, and so he would just go out and buy a new one. Of course, now as adults, we have a garage where we are pretty sure we still have something, but if we don't take care of what we have, we won't be able to find it to use it when we need it.

So, going with the whole cut back on work hours...it seems really simple to say let's just take on a second job somewhere (which we are not ruling out, yet) but it is probably better for us physically and spiritually if we work within what God has provided for us, and use our resources in the best way we can. So, I guess our real challenge right now is that of stewardship. Because, after all, God will provide for us. We are not in danger of losing our house, we will be able to keep food on the table, and we even have enough money for luxuries such as satelite TV and internet service.