Sadly, many people have the same approach to Christianity that they have towards fire insurance. In the day-to-day of life they don’t really think about it. It doesn’t affect them. But, just in case there is a fire, it’s nice to know it’s there. Well, sorry, that’s not the way it works. Just saying you are a Christian is not enough to protect you from the fire you really should be most concerned about.

Hi, this is Chris from Everyday Catholic. This is a special episode of the Weekly Word. Don’t worry, our normal reflection on the Sunday Gospel is still coming. But I wanted to share a little about how God has been working in my family's Everyday Catholic life. Many of you know my son Ben was diagnosed with T-Cell Lymphoblastic Lymphoma, Cancer, in May. We believe in a God of miracles.

In this modern age where more and more basic biological and moral truths are being denied, and where tolerance has somehow come to mean just accepting whatever nonsense a person chooses to believe, love can be very hard. Any disagreement, in our modern discourse, is too often characterized as hate. In this light, Jesus teaching in Luke 12:49-53 begins to make sense. Jesus says some hard things,

It is hard to stay at a constant readiness. The military knows this. The fire department knows this. Life Guards even know this. The Church knows this too. What the military and first responders do to stay ready is they drill. They practice readiness so that when an event happens, they don’t have to think about what they need to do.

The reality is, God is God. Not just of our prayer life, but of our whole life. And our money is part of that.

Our prayer isn’t the prayer of slaves before an angry master. We are children talking to our father. We shouldn’t be afraid to come to him, even to pester him with what is one our hearts. The Lord wants to give us good things. It changes everything when we see God this way.

It’s easy to fall into the trap of being a “perfect Christian" who does all the things, and forget that sometimes, most of the time, God just wants us to be with him. Yes there are things to do. There is work to be done in the Kingdom. But if we are so focused on our work for God, then we will miss being with him, and we will miss the work he is actually calling us to do.

Luke 10:25-28 is one of those passages that is just so blatantly clear that it is hard to avoid it. A scholar of the law asks Jesus what he must do to inherit eternal life, and Jesus asks him, well “What is written in the law? How do you read it? The man replies with an excerpt from what is known as the Shema Isreal. It is taken from Deuteronomy, and he then adds a bit from Leviticus.

No amount of preparation is going to fully equip you for the work God has called you to. No amount or preparation is going to make you immune to struggle. No perfect website is going to accomplish the work of the Kingdom. I am not saying that preparation, or planning are bad, but too often we spend massive amounts of energy planning, “discerneing” and preparing, and what God is asking us to do is just get on with it.