Dear subscribers, trimming the fat is today’s topic – and I don’t mean in a cooking instruction.

Today, I write you a post that is well suited for this time of year especially. Do you ever feel excluded? small? unimportant?

Do you ever feel like nothing you do is ever good enough? Do you ever feel as though all your aspirations lead to failure? Do you ever get frustrated with God?

Do you ever feel as though even God Himself, your creator – taunts you and mocks you through the words and actions of other people? After all, wouldn’t you be blessed with all your wants and needs if He truly does love you? Wouldn’t He give you everything you asked Him for? He would do so, especially if He considers you a worthy hard-worker, right?

I would love to share some of my understanding of gospel with you now, inspired by discouragement and momentous feelings of wasted toil. Sometimes we want to fix. Sometimes we want to start clean. Sometimes we believe that is expected of us. Sometimes we wonder why we have to go through it all. Biblical testimonies prove that this is nothing new in humanity.

It’s a relevant message, to encourage lost people to hope; in God, foremost. What do you hope of Him now, today? We need to answer that question of ourselves; especially, if no other person can convince you that this life is not about gathering up every blessing and every gift imaginable to enjoy now in the short term.

I too believe that hope was (and is) a central step to what is even richer – namely faith, that The Gift exists at all.

The only hope that really has any lasting promise – is Christ’s promises of our hopeful eternity with Him. I point to the parable of “the mustard seed”. For those of you who don’t know it, it teaches that even a tiny amount of faith, counts for A LOT in God’s eyes. A tiny seed becomes a big and glorious living tree in fertile ground. And, Heaven is promised to be fertile.

Advent; is an exercise of patience, for that which is prepared ahead of us. I know, also, it is a ceremonial memorial of Christ’s first kingship on Earth. That was our introduction to Him.

God has specifically stated to us, through the bible, that this mortal life is really nothing at all of value in comparison of what is to come. This may sound like a contradiction – as other Books in the Gospel teach that we are born as God’s apple of His eye; and that we are created in His image. And, yet, we often take ourselves so seriously; thinking that this life’s work is worthy of commendation, rather than evidence of our folly. Like nudity in the garden of Eden, Adam and Eve were at first blind to their nudity and vulnerability. Then they immediately became ashamed at how foolish they had become.

Let’s face it, this life is embarrassing! But, humility in our attitude and in our ego – that’s what God wants of us now. He knows that we are imperfect beings. He knows we’re growing.

That’s not a statement which demean the value of present life. I take my work, for example, not as a joke. Life is a marathon of patience, for every single one of us.

May I put my analogy of Advent to anyone who wonders what it means? It’s time to strip away the “fat”; to throw out “the trash”. It’s the opportunity to enjoy material austerity as a virtue, and to covet simplicity both outwardly and inward. It’s a time to get to the “meat and potatoes” of understanding and right thinking: what Christ is coming to harvest.
I mean this mostly, as an individual identification of self (attitude). And, faith that Christ loves you personally – even if your faith is small. You might be a doubter; but, have faith in Christ who resurrected from death showed His wounds to Thomas.

And, so, Advent becomes a longing for His Kingdom yet to come. Even if we’re like Thomas, wondering how much suffering in patience is still required of us.

“Straightening the path”, has so many dimensions and meaningful applications. Are we straightening our own path, or one for someone else? A contemporary favorite talking point, it does risk overemphasis on material and the physical, rather than on personal, psychological, and spiritual realities. Straightening the path, begins with mental exercise. It is then followed by actions too.

Wishing for things, in a fantastical and illusory desire to improve your current life with “fat” won’t help you. And, it’s what Jesus rejected in the desert. Christ truthfully owns all kingdoms – always did with His Father. And, yet, the devil passed himself off as the broker from whom kingdoms were born. That has not yet changed.

The most valuable gift however, is salvation born to us from the Spirit, through Immaculate Mary. Advent, it’s the only time of year where peaceful admiration of our Savior is finally distinguished as more important than serving each other’s needs and temporary life wishes or fantasies.

How can we accept such true life Gift (Jesus) as being ancillary, upon learning of its pregnant meanings? We can’t. It’s irrefutable.

Man’s considerations as a gift to him or herself, are precisely the artifices that must today be regularly stripped away from our individual thinking patterns.

For renewal, growth, and preparedness, life must be frequently joyless; even feeling “hopeless”, in order that we might evermore appreciate the coming HEAVEN in hope!

This current life might mock, demean, cheat, hurt – even as we reject material goods and misguided values; but, we know that it’s only a temporary fate that we endure.
In this life we are tempted. But, in the “next”, we share in God’s glory.

I challenge you to think about spiritual evolution, away from focus on social status. Christ’s birth in the lowly manger, is more a reality of glory born into humility; less so, a sign of glory at a place of material poverty. The important thing, is that He was born to us and revealed, not that His birth took place in a stable. It’s attitude and demonstration. It is important that He chose to be born there; humbling himself before us and making Him that much more accessible. But, it is not the central message of vital importance. Remember, He came for ALL and for every class of person.

God loves us so much that he does not give us everything we ask for in this temporary life! No, he “breaks” our spirit, diminishes our wills, brings us to our knees, and dashes many hopes, so that we will come before Him, with the true hope and desires. He wants us humbly anticipating what He knows to be good for us and pure. He readies us. He knows how to make His own “bed”, and where to reside. We have to make ourselves right for Him, individually.

God’s New Covenant, mercifully gives us the genuine hope that even though our dreams might be dashed, our needs and wants many, and our shortcomings made known to others, we must journey on even when life kinda “sucks”… giving our best efforts to be examples of moral uprightness to others. The “Good News”, is that God wants to give us an “A+” for our effort, rather than a deserved “F”. And, He has the power to accept every single soul who can humbly invite Him in. That’s quite The Gift, isn’t it?