Shout for Gladness: God Chooses Us for our Inheritance

Today's responsorial psalm, Ps 47, proclaims God as king of all the earth.
"Shout to God with cries of gladness, for the Lord, the Most High, the awesome, is the great king over all the earth. He brings people under us; nations under our feet. He chooses for us our inheritance, the glory of Jacob, whom he loves. God mounts his throne amid shouts of joy; the Lord, amid trumpet blast. Sing praise to God."

God mounts His throne, not to simply lord it over us but to rejoice at what He has accomplished on the earth through His Son Jesus.  Every occupant of this earth God takes with Him in Christ Jesus. We are already seated at His right hand in the Person of Jesus. The Father, our Abba, awaits the day when we actually will enter eternity to claim the prize His Son Jesus won for us through His death and resurrection. For that reason the Holy Spirit was sent to the earth that we would have an Advocate to lead us to the throne of God. For God, our Abba,  that moment cannot come soon enough. With joy He awaits that glorious day when He will give us "our inheritance".

Born Anew in the Spirit, in the Transcendent, Holy One

In today’s  Gospel, John 3: 7b-15, Jesus says to Nicodemus and to us: “You must be born from above.”   He also reminds us that “just as Moses lifted up the serpent in the desert, so must the son of Man be lifted up, so that everyone who believes in him may have eternal life.” What does it mean that you and I must be born from above? For me, that means that everything--all of my activities, all my relationships, the challenges and difficulties of any given day, the joys and exciting moments of a day, the disappointments and moments of sadness--has both an earthy reality and a transcendent one.  I can meet God or ignore God in any of my experiences. If I am genuinely seeking God and if let God find me in each of the day’s events, if I look upon Him whom they have pierced, repent and believe,  I will “be born from above,”  that is, I will be transformed into Christ’s way of seeing things, Christ’s way of dealing with difficult situations, Christ's way of loving and forgiving.  What I need to work at is training myself to look for God above all else.  When I troubled about my behavior or about anything, I need to take those experiences to the Lord in prayer, seeking His counsel and asking for His help. Yes, I need to bare by soul to the Lord.   When I recognize  my need my need to help and for mercy, I then open my being to being "born from above." Earth and heaven then touch each other. That which is below and that which is above meet in a humble embrace of love in those moments.