Author: Rich Pascual

Finding Time: Early Mornings

Woke up early again this morning. This time it was way before my alarm clock. Something inside of me was driven to sit down and write… anything… to express myself and the thoughts bouncing in my mind. Many of you, as you settle down into the 10 minute challenge, will start thinking about exactly when you’ll find the time to spend to fulfill your commitment. 

By making yourself mindful of a commitment, you’ll start discovering pockets of time you never knew existed. It might be a spare moment while waiting in line at a grocery store, a quiet lull during a mid-morning coffee break or maybe a silent pause between putting the kids to bed and settling down for the evening. Prepare yourself for these moments so that you’re poised and ready for success in achieving your 10 minute goal.

If journalling is your objective, carry a blank journal book or notebook (and a pen!) wherever you go. Spend a part of your evening searching, collecting and printing out inspirational passages or scripture to carry with you the following day. Many people have a commute on mass-transit (train, subway, bus or carpool); bring with you a non-fiction, self-help book or book-on-CD on a topic that nurtures your spiritual growth.

The goal isn’t necessarily completing what you’ve brought along – it’s in tapping into that hidden or often ignored desire to invite God into your spiritual life. Before long, you’ll find yourself looking for those pauses in daily life that allow you to pursue God in a meaningful way. I like to call these daily breaks “coming up to the surface for air”…    

The Unmerciful Servant

Today, while chatting with my wife and after an extended rant about my rough career experiences, she remarked: Why do you keep bringing up what happened in the past? It’s like you can’t let go of what happened to you, no matter how negative it was… and THAT is what may be keeping you from moving ahead with what God has planned for you now.

Very wise indeed. All I wanted to do was vent, but perhaps this was one of my more well-used soap-box speeches. In the past, indiscretions at the hands of past managers have made it difficult for me to do my work and in one case, it unjustly had cost me my job. For some reason, my anger and desire for justice (or revenge) would lead me back to retell and relive the experiences that had cost me so dearly.

My excuse: I simply wanted to remind myself of my past mistakes (in letting my guard down) and I didn’t want to let myself become a victim again.

My wife later added: Leave it up to God. If they have harmed you, they will have their day where they will have to answer for their actions. It isn’t up to you to handle that.

What she didn’t add was the most important lesson that Jesus Christ wishes to deliver to people everywhere: forgive.

Here I am, praying fervently each day for blessings, forgiveness and guidance from God and yet I still have a grudge in my heart against my neighbor. I tell myself time and again that they are forgiven, but that is easier said than done. If that was the case, there would be no need to bring up their name or their “crimes” in conversation or thought for any reason. Forgiven means also forgotten.

In Jesus’s parable of the unmerciful servant (Matthew 18:21-35), a servant begs of his master for mercy and forgiveness of an enormous debt he had owed to him. The master magnanimously forgives the debt only to witness later that same servant unmercifully punish and harass his neighbor for a debt owed to him. The master was enraged and he had his unmerciful servant thrown into prison and punished for his outstanding debt. In Matthew’s gospel, we see that we cannot expect to experience the blessing of God’s grace and forgiveness until we also forgive the ways our neighbors have sinned against us. 

“Lord, how many times shall I forgive my brother when he sins against me? Up to seven times?” Jesus answered, “I tell you not seven times but seventy-seven times.” (Matthew 18:21-22)

I pray today for the presence of mind and the strength to show mercy towards my neighbors and fellow humans. For whatever ways I have been harmed, I must release myself from holding a grudge and likewise from the desire for revenge or blind justice. Such incidents are totally in the hands of the Father, from whom Jesus Christ delivers a message of peace and forgiveness in response.

 

A Touch of Insomnia

Just the Three of Us TogetherWell, it’s slightly past midnight on an early, Sunday morning and I just happened to be up again. My wife and baby are fast asleep and I pause for a moment to look across at them. My daughter is now just past her first year and these times have been rewarding, yet tough on my wife and me.

Even with a little help from my parents, it’s been a challenge; Child rearing has been my wife’s full-time occupation with me filling in the small gaps in between work and sleep. People ask us when the “next one” is on his/her way and I find myself dumbfounded at the notion. One has been enough for us to handle! Still, we marvel at the small miracle of our daughter, who has grown beyond any level we could have imagined since that day when she was born into this world.

In the silence, I say a small prayer of thanks for the gift of this past year – we made it! I browse through the many pictures we have taken to date and eagerly trace the growth and development of our child through the thread of thumbnails on my computer screen. The memories are all good to me, and some even bring, through the darkness of night, a light chuckle to my throat.

My thoughts wander to a short, anecdotal story about motherhood entitled “You Will Call Her Mom“. It talks about a dialogue between a child in heaven talking to God and about his/her assignment to come down to earth to be born. Indeed I feel that the child in our care is a gift from God. He has entrusted my daughter into the hands of my wife and myself. I pray a little harder for a blessing and for guidance in raising, protecting and nurturing our child towards a responsible, hard-working, God-fearing life.