False Expectations Appearing Real
I was in school early yesterday to register for my FINAL SEMESTER of classes (can you tell I’m excited?!) and I ran into a friend of mine who is on schedule to graduate in December. Our history together has been such that I generally am in the position of being a calming presence and yesterday was no different.
My friend was having a moment of panic about a paper due in a few weeks. My friend is already a step ahead of me in most instances because I tend to procrastinate. Regardless, I was hearing words like, “fear” and “afraid” and already claiming that any first draft would be, let’s say “crappy” for lack of the actual expletive. I even heard about how we had an example of a classmate who had a mini meltdown around the same point in the final semester last year and how my friend now understood how that classmate felt.
I give thanks to God for giving me the wisdom to work on my own personal and spiritual development. I listened to The Secret on audio and I have The Secret Daily Teachings on my desk at work. What that has done for me is to allow me to find the best in any given situation and it allows me to share that wisdom with others, and so I did with my friend yesterday.
The wisdom that came to me began with reminding my friend to draw strength from the fact that the classmate who had the meltdown GRADUATED. The wisdom that came to me was to share the Good News that Jesus agonized in the Garden and the Enemy tried to trick Him, but was rebuked by the Word of God. So, my response to my friend was to go to the Word and find a comforting Psalm or Scripture to ease the fear. More wisdom came from another friend who once told me that fear was simply False Expectations Appearing Real. In other words, the Enemy is a liar! I also assured my friend that Aquinas Institute of Theology is not in the habit of “socially promoting” graduate students, so if my friend was a few assignments away from graduating then that position was genuinely earned and to take confidence that EVERYTHING needed to complete the paper is already in my friend’s possession.
I want to share a final point of wisdom that came from our conversation. It is to find God in the present and not to worry about the future. Find joy in the here and now and be not afraid. My friend’s son has a birthday today and my wish is that he enjoys today and that my friend is able to savor the joy of the miracle of life and the miracle of each day that we are given to live and touch another in a special way.
Amen.
