Glory of God

The Glory of God is Man fully alive. St Irenaeus.

This is one of my favorite quotes. What does it mean to be fully alive? Does it mean to be free of my ego and filled with His Spirit? Is it my ego at work that causes the resentments, fears, anger and discontentment in me? These are the things that block the sunlight of the Spirit.

What is my part in being fully alive? For me, is it practicing the principles of the 12 steps in all my affairs? I think so. I believe doing that helps me to understand how God wants to, and will, remove from me that which blocks me from Him. When I do my part, He is right there doing His, and, His Spirit is no longer blocked.

One “block” for me is anger. When I’m pissed off about something, I can pray as hard as I can and it seems like I’m banging my head against the wall – like God is a billions miles away. I like how Jesus described dealing with anger in Matthew 5:

^23-24"This is how I want you to conduct yourself in these matters. If you enter your place of worship and, about to make an offering, you suddenly remember a grudge a friend has against you, abandon your offering, leave immediately, go to this friend and make things right. Then and only then, come back and work things out with God.

So, when I have some resentment or anger going on, before I can connect with God – before the sunlight of His Spirit is unblocked - I have to work a 10th step, perhaps make some amends, and be entirely ready and humbly ask God to remove that anger; then, I have done my part and God can and will remove that anger that blocked me from the sunlight of the Spirit of my Abba.

And His peace and serenity is there and my soul smiles in the reunion.

I hope you have a good day.