Monday Morning Meditation #24: Here I Am, Lord

I just could not find anything in the remaining chapters of Joshua upon which to reflect, nor in Judges. Perhaps it was my restless soul, given the current state of alternating hope and despair re Ray. Stumbling on mechanistically into I Samuel, Chapter 2, the passage in which God called Samuel to himself, brought me out of my intellectual stupor. Yes, that is a story no one can read through casually. It has so much significance for our own lives.

Reading: I Samuel 3: 1-10.

Meditation: How many times have we been called and, like Samuel, attribute it to some earthly event or person? How many times have we ignored a call because we were too busy, not listening, or afraid to step up to the duty? Discernment is not always easy, but sometimes we don't have to do all the work ourselves. Sometimes we don't have to do any of the work at all; God takes the initiative and lets us know what He wants us to do through other people, scripture, seemingly personally directed homilies, other events, and myriad other ways. When God wanted me in my current position, He closed all the doors to my staying in Jordan, and when I decided to leave, God found ways to let me know that He wanted me to stay, including sending people to me with the comments I needed to hear in order to decide to stay. (See my earlier post, The Jobs God Would Not Let Me Have and the One He Insisted I Take and Keep.)

The important thing is to be 100% open and willing. Once I realized that God really wanted me in my current position, I immediately stopped looking to move on. At that point, an extraordinary thing occurred: my boss raised my salary considerably because he had learned that I had been interviewed elsewhere and he wanted to keep me. It was more money than I needed, and I assumed that it had come in part as a blessing from God. So, I have returned most of the money to God through sending it to various charities. It does get spread quite thin at a time, but it is what allows me to use God's credit card and keep payments current. I give where God points out I should give. Ah, the blessings from saying "Here I am, Lord; I will serve You wherever it is You want me to be" have been tremendous.

I love the song, "Here I am, Lord,", which goes on to ask, "Is it I, Lord?" It is one of the songs listed on the right side bar, but I am putting the URL here to make it easier for those who have not heard it to listen to it. To listen to the song, click here.

I hope you will find that song as much of an inspirational beginning to the week as I do. And that is far as I can go with you on this Monday morning. I must retire to prayer to repent for those times that I have not quickly enough realized that God was calling me to do something or other, to thank God for trusting me with some of His tasks, and to give praise for the extraordinary power that allows Him to reach us through all the interference that comes from what we call daily life. After that, I will spend time in contemplation, my favorite part of the day, letting God take over the direction in which my relationship with Him moves.

I will now leave you to your prayer and contemplation, but first, I would like to bring to your attention a Monday morning prayer post that you might enjoy:

Fr. Austin Fleming, priest of the Archdiocese of Boston and pastor in Concord, Massachusetts, posts a prayer each Monday morning that he calls "Monday Morning Offering." I enjoy his prayers very much. I hope you also will find them inspirational. He has graciously given me permission to include a link to his blog on my Monday Morning Meditation posts.

For additional inspiration throughout the week, I would point out two sets of blogs: (1) the list of devotional blogs that follow the enumeration of Monday Morning Meditations on the sidebar of this blog and (2) my blogroll, where I am following a number of inspirational priests and writers about spiritual matters. I learn so very much from all these people. I highly recommend them to you.