Last weekend, we attended the CFC - Singles for Christ international Conference (SFC-ICon). I attended SFC Icon almost every year since I joined this catholic charismatic community on 2010. But this ICon is the best one I’ve attended so far.
The talk about “Losing Joy” have struck me. After I have been into challenges lately, it made me realize that it is our emotions that we put into actions that robs our joy.
Temptations and Sins -
Falling into sins takes us away from God’s graces. There were times that I felt temptations especially when I am stressed or sad.
I am addicted to over indulgence (too much eating) and over spending. I always tell myself when I am stressed out that I am entitled to eat whatever I want and shop, buy things I want. And yes I don’t use my own money, I use credit cards. And when I realize that I don’t have much money to pay my debts, it added to my stress to the point that I feel miserable and I don’t have means anymore to pay for my financial obligations. There were times that I blame God for my miseries. But this year I made a pact with the Lord, to give tithes, in return, I asked for his graces and for him to give me the wisdom and strength to zero out my debts. I am glad to say that starting this year, I have opened a savings account and I have started to track my expenses. And to top it off, I was able to allot a portion of my income for the Lord through tithing.
Being single, we are also tempted in engaging into pornography, pre-marital sex and other sexual pleasures. We are called to be chaste and to guard our virginity until marriage. I have heard many stories about engaging into these sins, yes it will give them pleasure at first but afterwards, they feel lonely and empty. Nowadays, the evil created ways to penetrate us easily, through the internet. By the click of a button, we can easily access pornographic materials online. We need to guard ourselves in falling into these sins, we need to be prayerful and ask for God’s graces through visits to the holy Eucharist and confessions for us to avoid these sins.
Messianic Complex -
Many of us think that a sign of being “good” is to accomplish a task by ourselves. It may be at School, work, or Service, we wanted affirmation in everything we do. However it is a hidden evil that consumes us, it may get into our system and we become “conceited”. We feel like other people are obliged to give us praise in everything we do, and if they failed to do it, we feel bad about them or about ourselves.
There are also times that we exclude other people and we opt to do things on our own so we can get the credit.
Messianic complex gives us know-it-all-can-do-it-all attittude, it may be good at first but at some point will make us tired.
Asking help is not a sign of weakness. Showing that you are working hard is not a sign of strength.
Entitled to Blessings-
Self entitlement is an attitude wherein a person thinks that he deserves certain privileges.
Let me share to you my personal experience with self-entitlement. I’ve been serving our catholic community for years now, I am serving because I bargained with the Lord for me to have a good career, abundance, good health, and an easy life.
But sometimes, we experience challenges and it seems like God is still giving us difficult time even if we serve. And our problems instead of getting lighter it became more difficult to deal with. In effect, we question the Lord why he gives us challenges even though we serve him. This is the same feeling I had last year. I’ve seen similar stories with some of my brothers and sisters in the community, I’ve seen them work and serve so hard in the community but when they encountered difficult problems, they got tired and quit.
Serving the Lord would not give us immunity to experience problems. Our problems may look like God is breaking us, but in reality, he is building us through those adversities. When we serve evil would attack us in so many ways, but we have to be strong and courageous by praying consistently.
I choose to stay and serve in the community because i always think that this is what God wants me to do. Things will change if we started to be grateful and if we focus into the blessings we are receiving rather than the problems we are experiencing.
Like the story of Martha, when Jesus visited their house, she was doing a lot of things, and Mary was just seating. She asked Jesus to have Mary help her, but Jesus said to Martha doing to much and she have to relax. On that time Mary can help Martha but she choose to enjoy the moment with Jesus.
Let us not be consumed by our problems, we should learn how to trust God with his will.
How do We Guard our Joy
Jesus - we focus on Jesus, we should not forget every single blessings he gave us. We may be facing difficulties right now but we have to be grateful in every blessings God is giving us. We should lift up our problems to him.
We should also turn away from our sins and lift it up to him, let him heal our hearts from any brokenness because of our sins. God would not love us less because of our sins, that’s why he died in the cross for us.
Others -
- Forgiveness - The most difficult yet saintly thing to do is to forgive. It may be difficult to do but we have to pray to those who hurt us (Mathew 6:12)
- Serve others - (Matthew 25:35-36) we can also find Joy by helping others. Simple gestures like giving food or used clothes to the beggars, tutoring little kids in the public schools or spending time with your family or friends who are having difficult time. You can also find joy in spending time with your loved ones.
Yourself -
You have to learn how to forgive yourself. Past mistakes would not define you as a person. Do not be hard on yourself. Stop pressuring yourself in trying to be perfect because we can never be one.
Once in a while it helps that you spend time with yourself, and do things that will make you happy.
This heart warming talk made me realize that God never gave up on me. For the longest time, I heard his voice loud and clear and I can’t help but wrote it in my journal.
Proverbs 16:20 Those who listen to instruction will prosper; those who trust the Lord will be joyful.
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