Offer it up is something we hear often. It usually means offer up your suffering – whatever difficulty you’re experiencing at the moment, offer it up and unite it to the suffering of Christ. But this past weekend, it took on a whole new meaning as I meditated on Sunday’s Gospel reading about the loaves and fishes.

I’ve read and heard it read many times and heard many homilies on it before this weekend. But what stood out to me this time around were the words of the disciples “all we have here” and Jesus’ response “bring them here to me.” The disciples were concerned about feeding the crowd. What they saw in the five loaves and two fish available to them was scarcity. They didn’t think it was enough and Jesus basically said – do your part – trust me! Trust that I can work with you and give you enough. Trust that I can turn your scarcity into abundance.

Brick upside the head! God continues to speak to my self reliance! Is He speaking to yours? This Gospel spoke to me about giving Jesus my scarcity. Those places in my life where I feel I’m not enough or I don’t have enough to give – enough time, energy, experience. Today Jesus speaks to us too. He says “bring them here to me.” Gives me goosebumps to think all I have to do is offer it to Jesus and what I beleive to be a scarcity, He will turn into abundance. All I have to do is trust that He can and He will. After all He is faithful! God bless you!

Led or open? This Sunday’s first reading from 1 Kings 3 struck me as I meditated on Solomon’s experience. I guess, as a judge, I could relate to Solomon’s prayer. It’s something I pray about every morning before getting to work. But yesterday, the verse got me thinking about our role as kings. According to the Catechism of the Catholic Church (CCC 783), Jesus Christ is anointed as priest, prophet and king, and all baptized believers share in this threefold mission through their common participation in the Church. Discernment is a big part of that role. Of course, that got me thinking……….

Praise God that He is ever present in our lives and gently leads us to course correct when we’re walking through life either sleep walking or on auto pilot. For someone who’s spent most of her life on auto pilot and steeped in self reliance, it just dawned on me that there is a big difference between being led by the Spirit and being open to the Spirit. Let me explain.

There have been countless times when circumstances or situations in my life have caused me to claim I was led by the Spirit. Honestly, I don’t know if in those same circumstances or situations I had properly discerned what the will of the Father was. Everything just seemed to work out. Proof that we can be led by the Spirit without realizing it in the moment. Hindsight is 20/20.

Today, I’m open. Every morning I beg for the Holy Spirit’s help. Throughout the day, I plead for his help. There’s something about being open that’s so much different than being led. The more I pondered, the more I realized – and this only applies to my life – being led is good but it requires us to look back on our lives, to live in the past while being open requires us to be poor in spirit, acknowledging our dependence on God. It requires us to be present and it’s in the present where we meet God!

Being led and being open are both are good and necessary, but soooooo different! Today’s challenge: In gratitude acknowledge how the Spirit is working in your life but also ALLOW him to work by asking for his help! God bless you!