I=m sure all of us know that we are on a journey and in that journey we move, hopefully, more in repentance to grace than from sin to repentance to grace. Conversion is at the center of our stance before God. It=s really a stance of great hope. We need to reflect on the possibilities of our need for conversion.

            In the Old Testament in the Tower of Babel the community decided that they were going to keep the community together and make a name for themselves. They were self focused and filled with pride. They decided to make bricks and to burn them to heat them up and make them solid. It=s interesting that the bricks were made out of clay, a good symbol of human hard-heartedness. Of course, the Lord comes down, and what does He do? He doesn=t get angry at them and wipe them out. He simply changes the tongue. They can=t accomplish their goals so they get discouraged and they go their way.

            In the New Testament, we see Jesus encountering the woman at the well. He=s extremely patient, generous, loving, and accepting. So God in His relationship with us in our e journey of conversion is very, very gentle with us. But that doesn=t mean that sometimes He has to shake the boat. That=s because of the way we are about what we=re doing. Since we live in a very individualistic culture, one of our tendencies is to run our own ends and to put our own ideals into practice. We don=t realize that the real hardness of heart is not just that of the sinner. On the whole, the hardness of heart of the sinner eventually gets broken because, for instance, if the sinner constantly lies, sooner or later the sinner runs into problems. Then the sinner breaks and begins to say, AAm I going to continue this way or am I going to take a new step?@

            The lot harder heart is the hardness of heart of the righteous. Just look at the gospel with the Pharisees and Jesus is constantly battling them. He doesn=t abandon them. It=s amazing. But He doesn=t hesitate to really try to shake their boat. What=s really significant in the experience of our journey is to pay great attention to when we are disturbed, because that=s the place where we can begin to hear the action of God. It=s interesting that after the Tower of Babel comes the story of Abraham who allowed himself to be disturbed to open himself up to the journey of God. Abraham=s life was filled with the promise of fruitfulness. The whole purpose of encounters with Jesus is to fill us. As Jesus said to the Samaritan woman, AIf you only knew who was asking you for a drink, you would ask Him for a drink.@ God wants to fill us with grace and with His presence and His life. So we have to really look very closely when we do our workshop on this whole question of change and put into practice especially from the point of view of our journey and our need to stand in the position of the journey of conversion.

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