The other night I was watching Dave Ramsey, and something he said to a caller stood out in my own mind in a particular way. Of course, the issue was money, and the caller was complaining about not making as much headway against their debt as they would like. Of course, Dave was having none of it – suffering others’ moaning and complaining are not one of his strengths – and he finally cut the caller off. He then said something to the following effect:

“You say you dream of being debt-free, but you’re not willing to say ‘no’ enough to make your dream come true. Money management is as much behavior as anything else. If you truly want to achieve your dream, you have to learn to deny yourself, and to say ‘no’ to those things that get in the way of your achieving that dream.”

Truer words have never been spoken. But it doesn’t necessarily only pertain to money management, but to one’s faith journey as well. I heard Dave’s comments and immediately thought about my own state of things faith-wise, and how my own behaviors and my own actions often do nothing to help me achieve the faith-dream I seek.

I dream of one day being spiritually in sync with God’s desire for my life. I dream of being one with God, one with God’s own desires for me. I dream of the day when, upon my departure from this earth, I can look Our Lord square in the eye and say, ‘Look, I know I haven’t exactly been one of your saints, but it hasn’t been through any lack of trying on my part. Have mercy on me.’ But I know right now that isn’t true – I am and have fallen far short of God’s desire for my life, and there are still too many choices I make, caving in to my own earthly and fleshly desires, that keep me distant from God and always having to beg His mercy and forgiveness time and again.

I know this is just part of the journey to one-ness with God – we are not perfect, and, as the Psalmist says in Psalm 51, we all fall short in God’s eyes. Heck, even the apostle Peter denied Our Lord three times at that most critical moment in Jesus’ life, and yet He still found it in His Abundant Mercy to give Peter the chance to redeem himself thrice on that beach in Galilee following His Resurrection.

Learning to deny one’s self for the sake of our, and our soul’s, unification with God is at the heart of all the great writings and teachings by the Desert Fathers and those Saints acclaimed as Doctors of the Church (Augustine, Teresa of Avila, John of the Cross, etc.). It is an inner (and in many cases, outer as well) spiritual battle waged across time and space between the forces of good and evil, the angels and archangels in Heaven and here on earth, and the better and lesser angels of our own nature; a battle each of us must be willing to engage if we truly wish to achieve our dream of being at one with God in our lives.

On that beach in Galilee, Our Lord asked thrice of Peter, “Peter do you love me?”, to which Peter replied, “Lord, you know I love you.” Jesus then made demands of Peter, demands requiring denial of earthly things and the embracing of heavenly things. (John 21:15-17) He asks those questions to me – indeed, to each of us – every day, knowing our innermost dreams and desires, even if we don’t know them ourselves.

I can only pray that with God’s help and the help of Blessed Mary and all the Saints in Heaven and here on earth that I might find the inner strength and willingness to learn to say ‘no’, to learn to deny myself, so that I might achieve my dream of becoming one with God and Jesus’ own dreams for my life. For surely God has His own dreams for each of us, don’t you think?