Tag: God

Finding God's Goodness

The Superpower of Curiosity

Smitten With Goodness
Week One: The Power of Choice

Today is Epiphany marking the end of the 12 days of Christmas. Epiphany is one of the oldest Christian feasts and one of the most important. Historically, Epiphany celebrated four things: Jesus’ nativity, the Magi’s visit to the Holy Family, Jesus’ baptism, and Jesus’ first miracle at the wedding feast of Cana. Each biblical event is a theophany, or epiphany, a special manifestation of Jesus Christ to mankind.

I’ve been contemplating the visit of the Three Kings, symbolizing the revelation of Jesus Christ as a light for the Gentile nations and the Savior born for the redemption of all mankind. Oh how I love the light. I find the light comforting and challenging, drawing me to something greater than myself. What if the Magi hadn’t seen the light of the star or been curious? Gods goodness drew them and they listened. They were Wise Men just as you and I can be.

Continue reading “The Superpower of Curiosity” →
Finding God's Goodness

Learning Peaceful Ways

Smitten With Goodness
Week One: The Power of Choice

As I spend time in prayer and learn of God’s wisdom, He teaches me His ways. I gain confidence in the promises He makes to me. I also learn a countercultural way to live, in peace. My faith helps fuel me and God draws me to an everlasting peace. As my north star shifts to an eternal perspective, I am guided home to my Creator, granting me peace despite my circumstances.

Continue reading “Learning Peaceful Ways” →
Finding God's Goodness

Believing God is Goodness

Smitten With Goodness
Week One: The Power of Choice

A few years ago, I never really thought much about God’s goodness. Sure, I was grateful and felt like I was living a good Christian life, but I never really understood what was available to me and the impact it could have on my perspective and my heart. My disordered thinking deceived me into thinking that living life was all within my control where I was able to freely chart my destiny.  Looking back, I can see how self-absorbed I was. In a nutshell, I don’t think I wholeheartedly trusted God’s goodness.

Continue reading “Believing God is Goodness” →
Finding God's Goodness

Choosing Wisely

Smitten With Goodness
Week One: The Power of Choice

It is difficult to pursue the good life or virtuous life if I don’t know what virtue is. It’s been fascinating to explore the teachings on virtue of our early church fathers as their simplicity resonates with me. Even stoic philosophers like Marcus Aurelius found the virtues an extraordinary thing indeed!

Continue reading “Choosing Wisely” →
Guide to Goodness

Day by Day Finding God’s Goodness

Smitten With Goodness

With the weight of the past few years, do you feel you’ve been living the good life? How would you like to spend a few minutes each day cultivating a life worth living. Living the good life is the journey to find the divine within. It’s not so much looking outside ourselves but inviting our Creator to reveal the goodness present in the day-to-day moments of our life. Too often we are hurried, unconscious or unaware of the gifts of peace, hope and joy that are ours for the taking if only we seek the things that feed our soul such as our relationship with God. The whole of the Bible is about how we can restore and build this relationship with the Divine. God, who is always good, constantly seeks us and is ever present. It is we who turn away, following our own agenda and trying to fill a God-size hole with things other than grace and divine love.

Continue reading “Day by Day Finding God’s Goodness” →
Gift of Goodness

Gift of Goodness – December 31, 2021

Smitten With Goodness
A bit of goodness to start your day.

The Eternal Word Becomes Flesh

In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God.  He was in the beginning with God.  All things came to be through him, and without him nothing came to be.  What came to be through him was life, and this life was the light of the human race; the light shines in the darkness, and the darkness has not overcome it. 

John 1:1-5

On this, the seventh day of the Octave of Christmas, we are given a mystery.  The mystery of the “Word.”  It’s a language that is veiled and yet revealing at the same time.  It presents Jesus to us as the “Word.”  He is the Word who takes on flesh and is eternal, from “the beginning with God.”  The passage goes on to say that the Word was God and that the Word became flesh and dwelt among us.

Lord, Jesus, Eternal Word of the Father, I thank You for coming among us and for making Your eternal dwelling present to us.  Thank You for the great mystery of Christmas.  Help me to always celebrate this season with great joy and gratitude, and also with a sense of mystery.  May I always realize that the mystery of Christmas will never be fully understood.  May this mystery draw me closer each and every day so that I may fall more deeply in love with You, my eternal God.  Jesus, I trust in You.

Guide to Goodness

Have You Met Wisdom?

Smitten With Goodness

I believe that most of us want goodness in our lives which is ultimately to be loved. The problem is that in our humanity we have limited capacity to understand and give love due to our ego, inflated or wounded, getting in the way. I might suggest that as we seek wisdom, we learn how to love a life giving love.

Continue reading “Have You Met Wisdom?” →
Gift of Goodness

Gift of Goodness – December 29, 2021

Smitten With Goodness
A bit of goodness to start your day.

Simeon’s Prophecy 

Lord, now let your servant go in peace; your word has been fulfilled: my own eyes have seen the salvation which you prepared in the sight of every people, a light to reveal you to the nations and the glory of your people Israel.  

Luke 2:29-32
Continue reading “Gift of Goodness – December 29, 2021” →
Gift of Goodness

Gift of Goodness – December 28, 2021

Smitten With Goodness
A bit of goodness to start your day.

From Tragedy to Glory – Feast of the Holy Innocents

When Herod realized that he had been deceived by the magi, he became furious.  He ordered the massacre of all the boys in Bethlehem and its vicinity two years old and under, in accordance with the time he had ascertained from the magi.  

Matthew 2:16

Today on the fourth day of the Octave of Christmas, we see out of envy and hatred, Herod had countless innocent children killed in an attempt to eliminate Jesus, the newborn King.  How is this same envy and hatred playing out in our world today?

Continue reading “Gift of Goodness – December 28, 2021” →