{"id":15887,"date":"2017-08-01T09:43:25","date_gmt":"2017-08-01T13:43:25","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/co2mannatoday.com\/?p=15887"},"modified":"2017-08-01T09:55:20","modified_gmt":"2017-08-01T13:55:20","slug":"15887","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/co2mannatoday.com\/?p=15887","title":{"rendered":"Learning About His Ways"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><strong>When Jesus finished commanding His twelve disciples\u2026He departed from there to teach and to preach in their cities. \u2014<a href=\"http:\/\/www.biblegateway.com\/passage\/?version=31&amp;search=Matthew+11%3A1\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">Matthew 11:1<\/a><\/strong><\/p>\n<div class=\"col-sm-4\">\n<p><!--\n\n\n<div class=\"mobile-sharing-button\"><\/div>\n\n\n--><\/p>\n<div class=\"top-sharing\">\n<div class=\"sharedaddy sd-sharing-enabled\">\n<div class=\"robots-nocontent sd-block sd-social sd-social-icon-text sd-sharing\">\n<div class=\"sd-content\">\n<ul><!--\n \t\n\n<li class=\"odb-share-whatsapp\"><a onclick=\"javascript:pageTracker._trackPageview('\/outgoing\/#print');\" rel=\"nofollow\" class=\"share-whatsapp sd-button\" href=\"whatsapp:\/\/send?text=: \" title=\"\"><span><i class=\"fa fa-whatsapp\"><\/i> <span class=\"share-label\"><\/span><\/span><\/a><\/li>\n\n\n--><\/ul>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<section class=\"entry-content\">\n<div class=\"post-content\"><iframe loading=\"lazy\" src=\"https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/embed\/7nTSTRCCTc0\" width=\"560\" height=\"315\" frameborder=\"0\" allowfullscreen=\"allowfullscreen\"><\/iframe><br \/>\n<strong>He comes where He commands us to leave.<\/strong> If you stayed home when God told you to go because you were so concerned about your own people there, then you actually robbed them of the teaching of Jesus Christ Himself. When you obeyed and left all the consequences to God, the Lord went into your city to teach, but as long as you were disobedient, you blocked His way. Watch where you begin to debate with Him and put what you call your duty into competition with His commands. If you say, \u201cI know that He told me to go, but my duty is here,\u201d it simply means that you do not believe that Jesus means what He says.<strong>He teaches where He instructs us not to teach.<\/strong> \u201cMaster\u2026let us make three tabernacles\u2026\u201d (<a href=\"http:\/\/www.biblegateway.com\/passage\/?search=Luke+9:33\">Luke 9:33<\/a>).Are we playing the part of an amateur providence, trying to play God\u2019s role in the lives of others? Are we so noisy in our instruction of other people that God cannot get near them? We must learn to keep our mouths shut and our spirits alert. God wants to instruct us regarding His Son, and He wants to turn our times of prayer into mounts of transfiguration. When we become certain that God is going to work in a particular way, He will never work in that way again.<\/p>\n<p><strong>He works where He sends us to wait.<\/strong> \u201c\u2026tarry\u2026until\u2026\u201d (<a href=\"http:\/\/www.biblegateway.com\/passage\/?search=Luke+24:49\">Luke 24:49<\/a>). \u201cWait on the Lord\u201d and He will work (<a href=\"http:\/\/www.biblegateway.com\/passage\/?search=Psalm+37:34\">Psalm 37:34<\/a>). But don\u2019t wait sulking spiritually and feeling sorry for yourself, just because you can\u2019t see one inch in front of you! Are we detached enough from our own spiritual fits of emotion to \u201cwait patiently for Him\u201d? (<a href=\"http:\/\/www.biblegateway.com\/passage\/?search=Psalm+37:7\">Psalm 37:7<\/a>). Waiting is not sitting with folded hands doing nothing, but it is learning to do what we are told.<\/p>\n<p>These are some of the facets of His ways that we rarely recognize.<\/p>\n<p>_____________________________________________________________<\/p>\n<p>Richard Rohr<\/p>\n<h3>The Path of Descent<\/h3>\n<p><a href=\"https:\/\/cac.org\/the-belly-of-the-whale-2017-08-01\/\"><strong>The Belly of the Whale<\/strong><\/a><br \/>\n<strong>Tuesday, August 1, 2017<\/strong><\/p>\n<p><em>And so long as you do not know that <\/em>to die <em>is <\/em>to become<em>, you are just a wretched visitor on this dark earth. <\/em>\u2014Johann Wolfgang von Goethe [1]<\/p>\n<p>Jesus\u2019 primary metaphor for the mystery of transformation is the sign of Jonah (Matthew 12:39, 16:4; Luke 11:29). As a Jew, Jesus knew the vivid story of Jonah, the prophet who ran away from God and yet was used by God in spite of himself. Jonah was swallowed by a \u201cbig fish\u201d and taken where he would rather not go\u2014a metaphor for any kind of death. Then and only then will we be spit up on a new shore in spite of ourselves. Isn\u2019t this the story of most of our lives?<\/p>\n<p>Paul wrote of \u201creproducing the pattern\u201d of Jesus\u2019 death and thus understanding resurrection (Philippians 3:10-11). That teaching will never fail. The soul is always freed and formed through dying and rising. Indigenous religions speak of winter and summer; mystics speak of darkness and light; Eastern religions speak of yin and yang or the Tao. Some Christians call it the paschal mystery, and Catholics proclaim this publically at every Eucharist as \u201c<em>the <\/em>mystery of faith.\u201d We are all pointing to the same necessity of both descent and ascent, which is the core theme of my book <a href=\"http:\/\/store.cac.org\/Falling-Upward_p_18.html\"><em>Falling Upward<\/em><\/a>.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cTo die and thus to become\u201d is <em>the <\/em>pattern of transformation in the entire physical and biological world. Why not the human? There seems to be no other cauldron of growth and transformation.<\/p>\n<p>We seldom go willingly into the belly of the beast. Unless we face a major disaster like the death of a friend or spouse or the loss of a marriage or job, we usually will not go there on our own accord. We have to be taught the way of descent. Mature spirituality will always teach us to enter willingly, trustingly into the dark periods of life, which is why we speak so much of \u201cfaith\u201d or trust. Transformative power is discovered in the dark\u2014in questions and doubts, seldom in the answers. Yet this goes against our cultural instincts. We usually try to fix or change events in order to avoid changing ourselves. Wise people tell us we must learn to stay with the pain of life, without answers, without conclusions, and some days without meaning. That is the dark path of contemplative prayer. Grace leads us to a state of emptiness, to that momentary sense of meaninglessness in which we ask, \u201cWhat is it all for?\u201d It seems some form of absence always needs to precede any deepening notion of presence. Desire makes way for depth.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Gateway to Silence:<br \/>\n<\/strong>The way down is the way up.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/section>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>When Jesus finished commanding His twelve disciples\u2026He departed from there to teach and to preach in their cities. \u2014Matthew 11:1 &nbsp; He comes where He commands us to leave. If you stayed home when God told you to go because you were so concerned about your own people there, then you actually robbed them of [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[1],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/co2mannatoday.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/15887"}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/co2mannatoday.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/co2mannatoday.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/co2mannatoday.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/co2mannatoday.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=15887"}],"version-history":[{"count":6,"href":"http:\/\/co2mannatoday.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/15887\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":15893,"href":"http:\/\/co2mannatoday.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/15887\/revisions\/15893"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/co2mannatoday.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=15887"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/co2mannatoday.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=15887"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/co2mannatoday.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=15887"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}