Shifting into re-Verse Makes A Difference

     We keep hearing the same stories in Church, especially every three years because of our liturgical cycles.  And many of them are discussed through the Religious Education classes.
     When I've felt like the stories are so familiar, it's so easy to pass over them quickly and miss the messages that God wants to share with me.  If the Reading/Gospel seems boring or hard to understand, it is too convenient to bypass the whole thing as not worth my time and effort to understand it better.  But it doesn't have to be that way.
     When I have had to look over the Readings and Gospel to prepare as a Lector for Mass or to lead Liturgy of The Word for Children or in classes, God's messages are suddenly there in various and unique ways.  The ways that help me include praying about the passages, reading them a few times, and reflecting on what God is saying.
     The Word of God is not always the same, even if I read that passage a few weeks or months earlier.  It could be a word or a phrase in the verses that apply differently to my life now than it did, even a short time ago.  The Word of God hasn't changed.  I'm the one who has changed.
     And then I am at a cross-road.  I can accept the changes and I can affect those God brings to me, or I can ignore or reject the changes and try to go on living a lie.  I say, "living a lie," because whether or not we accept them, we are still changed.  And the difference is still part of our lives.
     The term "cross-road" is also an interesting one, because the cross is such a key part of our faith in who Jesus was, what He did and what He challenges us to do.  His words including "Come Follow Me," and "Love one another," are all about "Make a choice, now."
     If your past has put some separation between you and God, that doesn't matter.  The things that matter to God include "What will you choose now?"  Next comes, "Will you turn around and move toward God?"
     God wants each of us connected, and grounded in our faith, but we must be open to that possibility.  The word "Bible," has been used as an acronym; "Basic Instructions Before Leaving Earth," but its only a resource, a tool for us to use.  The living Bible is within us, and God so wants to inscribe our hearts with the message of love, unconditional love.
     The sooner we make the choice to get close to God, the more time we have to build that relationship which will make our transition into eternal life so much easier.  God ached so much for us to be reunited as family, that Jesus came to get us back, and lived, suffered, died and rose again for the Divine and human family reunion.
     The Bible messages give new meaning to the in-Verse proportions of God's love for us.  John 10: 10 tells us "I came that you might have life and have it abundantly."