Draw Near To God

God resists the proud,

but gives grace to the humble.

So submit yourselves to God.

Resist the Devil, and he will flee from you.

Draw near to God, and he will draw near to you.--James 4:6-8

The great theme of the scriptures for today is humility.  Many commentaries and homilies this day will focus on how the greatest will become the least and the least will become the greatest.  They will be great homilies for the Lord gives us great counsel about humility.  I just think that I should reflect more on the reading from St James, as it clearly finds its roots in the message of Jesus in the Gospel this day.  

Sometimes, I find myself surrounded by temptation and sin and really there would be little which  I can do to extricate myself from it because I am deployed.  However, when conversations become too raunchy or scandalous, I have found on occasion to tell my subordinates and seniors alike that what they are saying is wrong.  To some, I have become a paradigm of professionalism.  However, I don’t think that I am in such a position.  There are greater leaders than me and I don’t count my seat when it comes to the leaders meetings.  The Gospel for today speaks very personally to me because a couple of times this deployment, I have been asked (because to accuse would imply disrespect and my soldiers are, thankfully, more professional than that) whether I prefer some of my guys to others.  I have resolutely and repeatedly replied that I am not.  I remind them that I ask only a single standard uniformly applied to all of my troops.  I do not accept anything less than the standard and when soldiers do come up just a bit short, we talk and work through the deficiencies to improve them.  The questions about my favoritism have begun to recede as I have been given more responsibilities that take me away from regular supervision over my men.  The men have also given me great affirmations in my absence.  For all this, I give glory to God alone for his gifts.  

I do not believe that it can be understated that conversion is a daily process.  It is a daily process which requires humility.  The scriptures tell us today that God gives grace to the humble.  The first step in conversion has to be humility.  It is humility which allows us to admit to ourselves, and to God, that we have sinned and require his grace, forgiveness and love.  The second step to conversion is surrender.  The Lord wants to have a relationship with us in our lives and in order to allow him to work within us and through us, we must surrender our own will to his.  And thus, St James tells us that we should “submit [our]selves to God.”  This is not easy and in today’s sin-saturated culture, we find comfort in the words that we should “resist the Devil, and he will flee from [us].”  The Lord will answer prayers, provide spiritual healing and power, and guide our hearts as we turn from sin and turn to God.  Our comfort from the scriptures today tell us, “draw near to God, and he will draw near to [us].”  

And with this scripture today, I pray that we can all learn to take a step back and rediscover what God calls us to.  God universally calls each and every one of us to live a life of holiness.  Holiness happens.  And it begins with humility.