Meditation: Don’t Sweat the Small Stuff

Good Friday April 2, 2010

As I sit this morning at my kitchen table pondering the title of this meditation it struck me quickly the direction of thought I must go. This topic is not something I am unfamiliar with and in fact in a way I may call myself an expert.

Now I am not being arrogant when I lay claim to this expertise. I am but stating a reality that the Lord chose me and sent me on a path that eventually led to my gaining the experience needed to lead such a discussion.

Often when discussing the faith people have difficulty realizing the connection of everyday life to the gospel. I have been blessed all my life with a simplistic and accepting view of the teachings of our Lord Jesus Christ. This is not to say that I have always done the will of the Lord. I have failed and fallen often. I am but a simple man trying my best to follow “The Way” or “El Camino” of Jesus Christ just as the early Christians.

In the light of the pressures of our everyday life we become consumed with concerns of this world. We get wrapped up in the minutiae and overly worried. Also then there are the greater things as well where we also get absorbed to the point of losing all our focus on the one thing that we should always keep before us.

That one thing of course is our faith in the promises of our Lord Jesus Christ. Over and over again in the gospel he tells us of the care that our God has for us and that we need only to have faith in Him and all will turn out as it should. In listening and obeying our Lord in His teachings we are set free to have joy and happiness in this world while preparing for the next. But the truth is that we are weak and it is a constant that we will be tempted not only to despair but to reject our faith to the point that we look and seem like we never even heard the Gospel.
I put forward to you the real teachings of the Gospel are not the popular moniker of “Don’t Sweat the Small Stuff”. The teachings of our Lord are “Don’t Sweat Anything” if we have to put it into a phrase in our common vernacular. But now I am getting preachy so instead I would like to share with you a very personal story.

A few years back I was going through a very real and desperate struggle. I had my own business importing and exporting precious metals. The business turned south and I started to lose money. I had to find some other income. So I began to sell Life insurance as well to supplement what little income there was at that point. I was working hard but there seemed to be some cloud over my eyes. I was losing all hope as I couldn’t make the payments on the now ever mounting debt.

It was a dark October evening in 2004 I was on my way to an “Evening of Recollection” at an Opus Dei center. It still seems like yesterday and the pain so real and suffocating. I pulled my car over to the side of the road. I was exhausted. I thought to myself, if I kill myself my family would get the money they need, I can’t go on, I don’t know what else to do. I am worthless. This is the end. A small voice crying out from deep inside me told me not to stop. So I started the car and drove to the South Orange, NJ where it was being held.

A reminder, all this time I believed myself to be a faithful Catholic going to church regularly, adoring the Lord in the Blessed Sacrament and other pious acts. But this night my eyes were to be opened.
I arrived in time for benediction and the meditation. My mind was not there. I was totally lost to the darkness. But I had one last thing to do, go to confession.

I walked into the room. It was face to face confession. My confessor and also spiritual director was Fr. Bob Connor. As I said the words “Forgive me father for I have sinned………” it all came to me. I was in the presence of our Lord’s Servant in the person of Christ Jesus. And like a child with his father I began to cry. The pain of my struggles began leaving me; the darkness over my eyes was being lifted away. My greatest sin yet, despair. Then Christ spoke to me through Fr. Bob. He told me that all I have gone through is to build me up but now that I have hit bottom I can only go up. I was destined for greater things if only I have a true and certain faith in Our Lord.

That was one of the most powerful experiences of my life. In the short time following that night I was offered a job at the company I am currently employed at. The work I had been doing in my company and the life insurance field prepared me for the new job I came into. My struggles were not totally over but now I had the confidence of the love of the Jesus Christ in my life which enabled me to face anything and keep on moving forward.

There is a Hard Rock song I love by a band called Evanescence. It is called “Wake Me up Inside”. The reason I love it is because it reminds me so much of that night, of course I also do love Hard Rock. In one verse she sings “save me from the nothing I’ve become”. This song is essentially about a person on the precipice of despair and they are begging to be saved. It is a cry for help for someone who knows her intimately. I know the closest person on this world is our spouse but even that does not bring you as close as to the one person who truly knows us, Our Lord. So that cry for help is a cry for the Lord Jesus Christ, God. Once we realize this and go to him all our cares are simply washed away.

We need to focus on the person of Jesus and what he has promised. There is nothing to fear. Not even death for this is only the doorway to heaven in the eternal presence of our Lord. Jesus tells us “do not worry about your life and what you will eat, or about your body and what you will wear. For life is more than food and the body more than clothing.”(Luke 12: 22-23) “Notice how the flowers grow. They do not toil or spin. But I tell you, not even Solomon in all his splendor was dressed like one of them. If God so clothes the grass in the field that grows today and is thrown into the oven tomorrow will he not much more provide for you, O you of little faith? As for you, do not seek what you are to eat and what you are to drink, and do not worry anymore. All the nations of the world seek for these things, and your Father knows that you need them. Instead, seek his kingdom, and these other things will be given you besides.”(Luke 22: 27-31).

The “O you of little faith” of course was referring to me at that desperate time in my life. We need to remember how great our Lord is and even though there are literally billions of people His omnipotence is certain and true. He cares for us all and knows what we need. So in the end analysis this is the real practice of our faith.

To know that doing the will of the Father is what will set us free. Free from all worries of this world. For if we know that our just reward is coming and that the Lord cares for us then how can we be concerned?
This of course does not mean we sit on our buns and do nothing and be waited on. It is actually the reverse this means that we do all good and righteous actions for the love of Christ Jesus and our neighbors. That we strive everyday to take care of things we must and what we can’t, well that will be left for the next day.

I have to recall the event of this day over two thousand years ago, that to God is most likely only like a second. Our Lord Jesus Christ came and gave us an example. He showed us how to love God by loving each other and our neighbor as he gave the ultimate sacrifice of His human life. He spent time here on earth to speak to us directly and show us “The Way”. Enduring suffering that most of us will never have to face. But even so we should be ready even to face this kind of suffering because knowing as we do our ultimate reward in heaven nothing should be able to shake us from our goal.

My wife’s uncle who converted to the Catholic faith told me of his conversion. He was converted by the simple witness of a dying friend. She was a Catholic and he was amazed at how she was always at peace and never fearful of death. He had asked before she passed what brought her that peace. Her answer was simply her faith in what her Catholic faith has taught her that was handed down from the apostles of Jesus Christ for all time.

We must carry our cross and not be concerned. For we know what Jesus Christ has promised us. Once we have accepted this, how can we possibly sweat the small stuff, when we don’t even have to sweat the big stuff? I leave you with one of the most profound things Jesus said to us but at the same time so simple. “Whoever finds his life will lose it, and whoever loses his life for my sake will find it.” (Matthew 10: 39) Leave your worries behind and live for Jesus Christ and life will only get better.

Happy Easter!