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Vision: To Nurture Catholic Men's Spirituality in Chicago Southland
CMCSMen
A Blog for Chicago Catholic Men

Fight Your Battles God’s Way
 
God really likes it when we trust Him.
Photo: When Men Put God First
19 l Again, [amen,] I say to you, if two of you agree
on earth about anything for which they are to pray,
it shall be granted to them by my heavenly Father.

20 For where two or three are gathered together
in my name, there am I in the midst of them.”

 [Matthew 18:19-20]

When you have a battle before you, do you immediately respond or retaliate, or do you first pray about it?  The scripture verse above is what I call my ‘anchor verse’. Because it is what gives me courage to know that prayer, especially in numbers with others, can be more powerful than anything I could do or say when faced with difficult circumstances.

In other words, it is better to fight our battles on our knees. And when we do this too in the family environment, it examples to our wife and children the way how God wants us to fight our battles.

Is there a scripture verse that you keep going back to that is like an anchor to your soul? Consider to share this with your children and let it provide them a comfort and power beyond what our world tells them to do in relating to others with a conflict or difficult matters.

Now this anchor verse is different from your life verse that I wrote about before. The difference is that a life verse speaks about our mission in life, where our anchor verse speaks to us about making it through life. With an anchor verse, stand on it and wait for God to respond.

I can attest that when you don’t waiver or let others get in the way from what God promises, He will see you through in His will and not our own expectations. Instead expect to be on His agenda. The key about an anchor verse too is that God has to get us in a corner to get our attention – His will is that we depend on Him -- Adversity is God’s bridge to a better relationship with Him.

For example, when I had it on my heart in 2004 to start CMCS, before I brought others into the leadership, I prayed to God that as long as He provided for the needs of the apostolate I would know that it is still His will that we continue with it. There wasn’t any response for some time, until the Holy Spirit put it on my heart to respond to donations with hand-written notes and letters. I didn’t understand what this meant at first, but once I prayed in agreement then God has since opened many doors and hearts, and provided to this day, but not in a way that you might expect.

The lesson here was to let God decide how far and wide the ministry goes … and this has always been a work in progress, just like our own spiritual life journey should be.

My expectations would have been to make priority my art photography business and let CMCS be my ministry, as many trusted people advised me. But, instead God’s mercy has provided employment to the members of my household in a way that I can work more in CMCS. God also has provided through the hearts of people (and not always Christian’s) not only for the needs of this apostolate, but also for our personal needs that we could otherwise not afford. As scripture says, God’s ways are not our ways.

The number of men who’ve been transformed spiritually because of CMCS is priceless, compared to the income I am not making doing it ‘my way’…..

“The LORD also restored the prosperity of Job,
after he had prayed for his friends; the LORD
even gave to Job twice as much as he had before.“
[Job 42:10

Job never saw his troubles coming. Job kept asking God why. God reminded Job that He was God and Job was Not. Job could have been really angry with his friends for giving him bad advice and assuming his problems were entirely his fault, but he chose a difference course: He prayed for them. God then opened heaven's doors and gave Job twice as much (wealth) as he had before.  

God really likes it when we trust Him. So, fight your battles on your knees first, before going to others, and let Him teach where He is at work through us.

How can the CMCS-Team and Bishop Perry pray for you?  Click here to contact us and know that the power of Matthew 18:19-20 will be at work on your behalf … God says so.
Thank you for reading. God bless you and your day.

Frank J Casella,
CMCS-Director
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