Be Attentive

/ Barb Schmitz / Leave a comment

Don’t Miss the Encounters God Wants You to Have

Today’s Scripture reading is from the book of Samuel. We have Hannah, wife of Elkanah, who is barren and has been for years while Elkanah’s other wife, Peninnah, has many children and kind of lords it over poor Hannah. Every year the family travels to Shiloah to make a pilgrimage and offer sacrifices to the Lord. This particular year, Hannah is particularly distraught, so she rises after a meal and presents herself before the Lord in the temple. Eli, the priest of the Temple, was sitting on a chair near the doorpost of the temple–no doubt observing all that was going on around him.

In her bitterness, Hannah prays to the Lord, wiping many tears. She makes a vow–promising, “O Lord of hosts, if you look with pity on the misery of your handmaid; if you remember me and do not forget me; if you give your handmaid a male child, I will give him to the Lord as long as he lives; neither wine nor liquor shall he drink; and no razor shall ever touch his head.”

Hannah remained before the Lord a l-o-n-g time in prayer.

During this time, Eli is watching Hannah. He sees her mouth move but hears no words. He thought she was drunk and rebuked her, telling her to “Sober up!”

Hannah explains that she isn’t a drunkard, but only an unhappy woman pouring out her troubles to the Lord and that her prayer was prompted from deep sorrow and misery.

Eli tells her to “Go in peace. May the God of Israel grant you what you have asked of him.”

Clearly, Hannah’s distress, humility, honesty, and sincerity touched Eli’s heart and he hadn’t even known what she’d prayed for!

But Hannah believed Eli’s words because the next verse says, “She went to her quarters, ate and drank with her husband and no longer appeared downcast.”

The next morning, the family worshiped before the Lord and went home.

And the rest is history.

Hannah conceived a child–a MALE child–whom she called Samuel since “she had asked the Lord for him.” And she followed through with her promise to give the child back to the Lord for as long as he lives.

No doubt Hannah had prayed many times during her barren years for a child. What made this prayer different?

No doubt MANY people came to the Temple to pray. What made the priest Eli notice Hannah this day? Had God pointed her out?

Who does God point out to us in our day?

What made Eli make that promise to her? Was it God speaking through him?

What made Hannah believe it? Was it because she saw something of God in Eli?

What makes us notice others? What makes us act on the nudge the Holy Spirit gives us?

Last week, I was schedule to conduct a safety training presentation for a county in my neck of the woods. Before leaving home, a picture of the Sacred Heart of Jesus that sits on my bedroom dresser caught my eye. I traced the sign of the cross over the heart of Jesus and prayed that He’d open my eyes, ears and heart to His presence in my day… that I wouldn’t miss an opportunity to serve him this day.

An hour later, standing in front of the fifty or so employees I was presenting to, my eyes were drawn to one man in particular sitting on the end of the middle row of three long lengths of tables. His name was Grant. And I had this strong feeling/thought that I should give him a copy of my book, Everyday Encounters with the Lord.

Just as quickly as the thought floated across my mind, I dismissed it. I mean–how awkward and uncomfortable would THAT be? I hardly know the man! And I’m training for a public entity! He’s a public employee! There’s the whole “separation of church and state” thing to consider . . .

So I ignored the nudge, went about with the 3-hour long training presentation, packed up and went home for the evening.

Early the next morning found me back in the same building, setting up the same presentation for another group of employees for the same county. In walks Grant. Surprised to see him, I joked, “Hi! Back again for a repeat?”

He gave a half smile and said, “No, I just wanted to stop in and tell you that you did a great job at the training yesterday. I really enjoyed it.”

As I thanked him, his eyes filled with tears and he took a deep breath, and continued, “And to tell you that when you asked the group yesterday what the most important thing in our lives was, I said, ‘family'”. He stopped and wiped the tears that were starting to flow out of his eyes down to his cheek before continuing, “I wanted to say that GOD was the most important thing in my life, but I didn’t. But God IS the most important thing in my life, and I feel like I let Him down when I didn’t voice that. Because it would have been awkward and uncomfortable“.

(More tears streaming from his eyes).

“I felt like I denied the Lord and I promised him I wouldn’t do that anymore. I asked his forgiveness last night but felt I needed to come in today to tell you that GOD is the most important thing in my life.”

Here’s this man–a guy in his 50’s–who drove several miles out of his way to come and tell me this, all the while wiping tears away for not having done what he felt God wanted him to.

Imagine how I felt in this moment–knowing I’d not done what God had so clearly wanted ME to do either!

I reached out, gave him a warm hug and said, “Come with me. I’ve got something I need to give you,” and led him out to my vehicle and handed him a copy of my book.

“You’re not going to believe this,” I told him, “but I felt like God wanted me to give you this book yesterday and guess what? I didn’t because it would have been awkward and uncomfortable. I know EXACTLY how you feel. Thanks so much for coming back in today and telling me what you did. I hope you enjoy the book.”

I love that our Lord is a God of second chances! He works in the most beautiful ways in spite of our hesitation to follow through on those little nudges He gives us. I am SO glad our Lord led Grant to come back and talk to me because it was a second chance for me to give him the book God so clearly wanted him to have!

Going back to Eli and Hannah . . .

What made Eli give that promise to Hannah? Was it God speaking through him?

What made Hannah believe it? Was it because she saw something of God in Eli?

What makes us notice others?

What made me notice Grant among FIFTY other people as being the one I should give a book to?

It’s the Lord.

Just like Eli didn’t know why Hannah was praying so intently, I don’t know why God wanted me to give Grant the book. Eli only noticed Hannah–and acted on what God led him to do and say.

It’s not up to us to question the nudge . . . to know all the details of why and what God is calling our attention to; it’s only up to us to respond–to be obedient to His prompting.

And . . . that’s enough . . .

And, perhaps later, as in the case of Hannah, we will know–like Eli eventually came to know–the reason and the purpose behind that encounter. Hannah’s desperate prayer–the one Eli asked the God of Israel to grant–turns out to be a child (Samuel) that Hannah later gives to Eli to train and raise. Samuel becomes a pivotal figure in Israel’s history–a great prophet, priest and the final Judge of Israel. He winds up appointing the first two kings of Israel: Saul and David.

But no one knows this yet.

Eli and Hannah’s encounter is such a seemingly everyday encounter on an ordinary day, yet it is far from that.

And those thoughts/nudges/urges from the Lord in our ordinary days are important too. God wants to make something happen in the world through us.

Are we watching? Are we listening? Are we acting on those nudges?

Lord, open the eyes and ears of our hearts to watch and listen closely to the random thoughts/nudges that strike us in the common, ordinary moments of our lives and give us the courage and wisdom to act on them, so we don’t miss–or interfere–with Your plans for the salvation of our world.

Have You Seen Jesus Today?

/ Barb Schmitz / Leave a comment

We had a priest in our small Catholic parish who used to continually ask us this question: “Where have you seen Jesus today?” And I used to think to myself, “ummmm… nowhere?” I don’t know if I thought Jesus should show up looking like Mel Gibson from the movie, The Passion of Christ, or Jonathan Roumie from The Chosen, but, sadly, it was clear I wasn’t seeing him in my daily life.

Thankfully, I’ve since had my eyes opened to the fact that the Lord does indeed show up in our daily lives, but it’s not necessarily how and when we expect him to. And, in order to recognize him, we have to get to know him. We do that through spending time with him … in silence, in prayer, in reading scripture, in participating in the sacraments, in spending time in Adoration. And once we get to know him and have a personal relationship with him, we see him EVERYWHERE!

For instance, if you read the Gospel passage of John 21:1-14, you’ll find the disciples are out fishing on the sea. Their leader, Jesus, has been crucified. They’ve been out all night and haven’t caught a thing. When dawn came and they are heading back to land, Jesus is standing on the shore, but they didn’t recognize him. To them, he was just a man standing on the shore watching them.

The man asked, “Children, have you anything to eat?” When they replied, “No,” he told them to cast their net over the right side of the boat and they’d find something. So they did and they were not able to pull in the net because of the large number of fish in it. (Sound familiar? Isn’t this how he got their attention three years before?)

It was John–the disciple “whom Jesus loved”–(and clearly the most observant one) who told Peter, “It’s the Lord!”

How did John know? Did the large catch of fish give him a sense of dejavu? Or was it that John was able to recognize him because of the bond of love they shared?

When Peter heard John’s words, he jumped into the sea–even though they were only 100 yards or so from shore.

I love this. I love that Peter couldn’t wait to get to the man who didn’t look like Jesus, but was Jesus. I love that in his excitement and his joy, he abandoned all propriety and jumped right into the sea. How that must have made Jesus smile.

Do I do that when I sense the Lord’s presence in my life? Do I throw all propriety aside and run, swim, skip to him? No, I confess often than not I hold myself back in trepidation–wondering what he’s got up his sleeve for me now. Maybe even fearing what he might ask of me–something I don’t want to give. Sometimes it’s uncertainty that holds me back, “Is this really you, Jesus?” and sometimes it’s pride, “What will other people think?”

All these things boil down to one common denominator–I don’t trust enough.

But not the disciples! They walk over to the man standing on the shore and he invites them to, “Come, have breakfast.” Not one of the disciples dared to ask, “Who are you?” because they knew who it was–they recognized the Lord in their midst.

This is actually the third time Jesus appeared under the guise of someone they didn’t recognize.

He appeared to Mary Magdalene in the garden outside his tomb and she thought he was the gardener until he called her name.

He appeared to the two disciples on their way to Emmaus and they thought he was a stranger until he broke the bread.

And now he appeared to the disciples coming in after a long night of fishing as a man standing on the shore until John recognized him in the catch of fish.

How many times does the Lord come to us in disguise? I think of St. Faustina (of Divine Mercy fame) who interrupted her prayer time with the Lord to answer an insistent knocking on the door to her convent and found a beggar outside the door. She invited the unkempt man in and fed him. After he left and she went back to prayer, she apologized to the Lord for leaving him. It was then that the Lord told her that it had been him in the form of a beggar whom she had fed.

How many times has the Lord come to us and we’ve failed to see or recognize him because he was wearing the face of someone we don’t expect him to look like?

My mind went back several years as I thought of an acquaintance, a woman named Jeannette, who had recently been diagnosed with cancer and was wondering where Jesus was and if he was hearing her prayers. Jeannette had been reading a book about the healing waters of Lourdes, France, and she’d been thinking of a way she could get some. I had no knowledge of this when I was cleaning my closet, came across some bottles of Lourdes water from a pilgrimage I’d made there a few years earlier, wondered who might like a bottle and had Jeannette’s name randomly pop into my head. I had no idea when I tucked a small bottle in my purse on the way to church that night that she’d be there.

But God knew.

And when I stopped her after church that night, she saw me until I handed her a bottle of Lourdes water. Then she no longer saw me, she saw Jesus. Jesus answering her prayers, calming her fears, removing her doubts. (That’s why he put HER name into my mind that morning when I was wondering who might like or need a bottle!)

When Jeannette looked at me with pure shock on her face… when her eyes filled with tears… when she put her hand on her chest and said, “I just can’t BELIEVE this!”… it wasn’t ME she encountered, it was Jesus.

And instantly, I knew that I, too, had just seen Jesus at work in my day. You see, just that very morning in my prayer time, I had asked the Lord to let me be his hands and feet in the world. And, as if I needed confirmation that he had done just that, a few days later I received an email from Jeannette’s daughter, Jill, thanking me for giving her mom the Lourdes water, telling me that her mom saw it as a sign that God was hearing the prayers she and others were offering, and thanking me for “being the hands and feet of Christ” for her mom.

The Lord is all around us. All we need do is ask him to open our eyes, ears and heart to recognize him in his many disguises.

Welcome to the World of Everyday Encounters with the Lord!

/ Barb Schmitz / Leave a comment

It seems like MANY years ago when I was on my way to do a safety inspection for a client I was working with. It was a beautiful autumn morning and I was enjoying the silence and peacefulness in my car, even though I’d been struggling with a bit of restlessness in my life–particularly my faith life. I felt like I wasn’t perhaps doing all that the Lord desired of me.

As I rounded the bottom of a gentle hill, I heard an inaudible voice in my heart say:

“Pay attention to your life.”

Well! When you get a nudge from the Lord like that, you start paying attention to your life!

And even more intriguing–I knew what He meant.

You see, I’m a “Martha”. If you know anything about Jesus’ friends, you know Martha and her sister, Mary. Martha is the one who runs around doing all kinds of tasks: preparing meals, tidying the house, washing the dishes, making sure there are clean sheets on the beds and towels in the bathroom, polishing the windows until they sparkle . . . while Mary–she sits at the feet of Jesus, listening, watching, soaking up all of His wisdom. And this kind of got Martha’s goat once in a while.

I have Martha’s personality. I like to be busy, serve others, have a clean house and I can occasionally complain, worry and be anxious. I can judge others with the best of them. I struggle with looking at the world with the eyes of Jesus, hearing with the ears of Jesus, loving with the heart of Jesus.

And I knew that the Lord was calling me to change. To slow down and be more attentive to my life and His actions in it.

I also knew that the Lord had blessed me with the charism of writing and I somehow knew that He wanted me to write a book. I had no experience as an author and I certainly had no idea what the book was supposed to be about (which caused me untold amount of worry, doubt and fear). But EVERY time, I thought about taking the easy way out and NOT writing this book . . . every time I procrastinated doing His will . . . every time I told Him I wasn’t the person for the job . . . ONE Scripture passage ALWAYS appeared in my day and caused me no small amount of consternation–

–It was Matthew 25:14-30 where the master goes on a long journey and entrusts three of his servants with talents. To the first he gives five talents, to a second servant–two, and to a third–one. Each according to his ability. When the master returns and settles accounts with them, the servant given the five talents returns with five more and the master praises him, “Well done, my good and faithful servant. Since you were faithful in small matters, I will give you great responsibilities. Come, share your master’s joy.”

The same happened with the servant who was given two talents.

But when the servant given only one talent comes forward, he tells the master he buried the talent. (You KNOW where I’m going with this, don’t you?) He had nothing more to show for the talent entrusted to him and said, “I knew you were a demanding person . . . so out of fear, I went off and buried your talent in the ground. Here it is back.”

And what did the master say? (Yikes!) “You wicked, lazy servant! . . . Take the talent from him and give it to the one with ten. For to everyone who has, more will be given and he will grow rich; but from the one who has not, even what he has will be taken away. And throw this useless servant into the darkness outside where there will be wailing and grinding of teeth.” (Double yikes!)

Like I said . . . that Scripture came up every time I pondered not doing what the Lord desired of me.

Not really wanting to be among those wailing and grinding their teeth, I took one tentative step forward . . . and then another . . . and then there was the day I was sitting in Adoration at my small Catholic Church feeling restless and anxious because I’d not been devoting much (if any) time to writing “the book”. I prayed, asking the Lord to give me confidence, wisdom, perseverance, faith and health to get it done–for His glory and my salvation. (Yes, I was still sweating out that wailing and grinding of teeth part). After writing that prayer in my journal, I closed the journal and gazed at Jesus in the monstrance on the altar. Out of nowhere, I heard another whisper in my soul:

“Your salvation does not depend on your writing this book, but the salvation of others may.”

And in that moment, I knew–I knew I was not meant to think of this book as “my story”. (I mean–who really cares about MY story?). No, I realized that perhaps within the words of my story, others would find theirs . . . and this would draw them into a deeper relationship with the Lord.

From that day forward, ever so slowly, (and I mean s-l-o-w-l-y!) the book Everyday Encounters with the Lord came to fruition.

The entire thing has been a work of the Holy Spirit–from the call to pay attention to my life so I could better see Jesus in it, to subject matter, to the timing of the publication.

I hope you not only order and enjoy this book the Lord and I have written, but that you also come to Pay attention to your life and see how the Lord talks, walks, acts and nudges you along your way.

And be sure to let me know if and how it has blessed your life!