Stuck in Time

So much of our misunderstandings about Faith and the Church and the concepts of teachings like Purgatory, Heaven, the Treasury of Merit, Temporal Punishment, the Communion of Saints and other high falutin' stuff is that we, as humans, are stuck in time. And because we're stuck in time, we're not really able to grasp the realities of things that are OUTSIDE of time. We can't wrap our minds around it because we're bound by natural law and while we accept the supernatural, we can't really grasp it.

So many disagreements between Catholics and Protestants or between Protestants and Protestants, are about us limiting God to our own little boxes that we've created to put Him in, so that we can feel comfortable. But hey -- this whole Faith walk stuff isn't comfortable at all!

I LOVE the Catholic Church's expression that this faith life that we have is a journey. And we're all at different places on our pilgrimage. And while that sounds trite, it's very true.

I'm not even on the same page as my husband, even though we're "one flesh". It's almost as if this walk of Faith is like a book but you don't read it cover-to-cover, you open it up and study a chapter here and a chapter there and you're never on the same page as someone else. Oh, you might be for a time but then you (or they) quickly move ahead or lag behind. It’s just the nature of life and learning.

Sometimes I listen to certain Catholic friends and I think, “Wow, that’s deep!” and I wonder when I’m gonna get there. And then life intervenes and I’m off in a totally different direction than they are headed anyway!

I've seen so many changes in myself -- deliberate purification and sanctification on the part of the Holy Spirit. I know that I'm heading down the path that He has ME on. Others are way ahead of me in some respects and I'm catching up to others in my own TIME.

See? We're limited by time as long as we're on earth. And so much of what God is all about just defies the very clock we like to watch and live by.