The "God Pause"

   
      I don't have it all together, not by a long shot. But I do keep working, diligently on forward progress, purposefully so that some days, I get closer than others. I visit a spiritual director on a regular basis and when needed I visit a good therapist. For me I really need both, my faith and spiritual counseling must overlap secular therapy. The readings in the December Magnificat brought the why together for me this morning.
   
      In Cognitive Behavior Therapy ( CBT ) there is a pause. I'm told the only place where our power lies is in that pause, before we act. That pause to take a moment - reflect before we react, think before we respond. Looking at my Christianity and how it overlaps, that pause for me is the "God pause" . The pause where I invite God into the mix asking what is really happening here? What are you calling me to see? To hear? To know before I act? Who are you calling me to be in this moment? If being a Christian is to have love, to be love, what should my action be?

     Pope Benedict XVI describes faith in this way. "What faith basically means is just that this shortfall that we all have in our love is made up by the surplus of Jesus Christ's love, acting on our behalf. He simply tells us that God himself has poured out among us a super abundance of his love and has thus made good in advance all our deficiency. Ultimately, faith means nothing other than admitting we have this kind of shortfall; it means opening our hand and accepting a gift." The "God pause" which fills us with the love we lack.  

Blessed John Henry Newman states "If, indeed, we listen to the world, we shall have a secret shrinking from the Church's teaching. I say that we must not only have faith in the Lord but must wait on Him; not only must hope but must watch for Him; not only love Him, but must long for Him; not only obey Him but must look out, look up earnestly for our reward, which is Himself. 

We must not only make His the object of our faith, hope and charity, but we must make it our duty not to believe the world, not to hope in the world, not to love the world. We must resolve not to hang on the world's opinion, or study its wishes." So I ask myself in the "God pause" is my response a Godly response? Will it lead me to a better version of myself? These are things to ponder in this "God pause", this moment of choice.