The thoughts of God; learned or inherited?

Reading the Confessions of Augustine one can begin to see the pronunciation of an energy that can only come from a concerned deity that lives within each person, yet lives only because he was already there.

It isn’t so difficult to believe that as Jesus has said, “I pray not only for them, but also for those who will believe in me through their word, so that they may all be one, as you Father, are in me and I in you, that they also may be in us, that the world may believe that you sent me. And I have given them the glory you gave me, so that they may be one, as we are one, I in them and you in me, that they may be brought to perfection as one, that the world may know that you sent me, and that you loved them even as you loved me.” Part of the priestly prayer before his passion. (Jn. 17: 20 - 23). The very essence of what Augustine was reflecting upon as he began his Confessions. This also, is the deeper understanding that we are not alone without the very indwelling of God within us as we are within him as well, from the depth of the Lord creating each one.

Does the probability that many blessings can be emitted from you or me seem impossible? How many times have you reached out in charity to someone in need and thought I believe God was with me. I could not have accomplished this on my own? Well, with God living within us how unbelievable can it be that the Spirit within is that essence that works through each of us?

When anyone whom you have helped regardless of the situation asks who and how did you arrive and change the course of things like you did? Your response should be; “But how shall they call on him in whom they have not believed? Or how shall they believe without a preacher? And they who seek the Lord shall praise him. For they that seek shall find him, and those who find shall praise him.” Taken from Confessions of Augustine. God within is always at work through our belief and guidance as ministers of the Word.

We are the hands and voices of God when any of us is called upon to act through holiness that is God working through us. It is not just in a holy setting or when everything appears to be free from the evil that lurks around the corner. “But how shall I call upon my God, my God, and Lord? I call on him, I ask him to come into myself. And what room is there in me, where my God can come-God who made heaven and earth? Even if I were in hell, you would be there also. For if I go down into hell, you are there” When the need for God exists he is there, within us and for us, using us to do his will.

The thoughts of God; we learn but already have inherited his grace through faith and nurture that blessed faith through trusting in the One God who believes in us to do his will.

Ralph B. Hathaway