THE THREE BIGGEST DECISIONS OF MY LIFE

Dear brother and sister, I want to share important information about the three decisions we all make in our life using my life as an example. At a certain age we become responsible for our own decisions and to show who we really are. At first, the lack of experience often leads us to fail in making the right decisions and we suffer for not having anticipated the consequences or result thereof. If there were an effective formula that we could all apply, we would not experience so much pain in our lives as we would not allow other people or our environment to influence us in a negative way.

I remember that as a child I would think, what must I do to be happy? My childhood was made up of poverty and scarcity; I determined that the answer was to own things and to enjoy as many pleasures as possible, anything that the body would interpret as happiness, although it was never truly happi-ness, but simply pleasure, and repeated pleasure that turned into vice, an addiction. The worst part of this mindset is that I did not even realize the humongous danger of suffering eternal death I would place myself in. Unknown to me at the time that mindset is precisely Satan’s formula; pleasureful deci-sions led me into traps, turning me into a slave of desire, while being totally oblivious to the fact that those many pleasures would bring nothing but problems down the road. As a child I made decisions every day. However, every-now-and-then I faced major decisions which, if poorly made, will cause suffering and even the possibility of losing Eternal Life with God and ending up in eternal fire. Sad.

We know that the death of the body is not the end of our experience but the beginning of our eternal destiny where we will spend Eternity. I thank God for His Mercy toward me, because I made several wrong decisions and paid a price for each. But one good thing I did was to eventually learn to proac-tively meditate about my feelings, from which I discovered what I should do. In spiritual terms, we know this as discernment; which I now consider to be part of my daily life. Before making an important decision, I pray and ask the Lord for discernment, what to do; in that process I evaluated the past and based on my previous decisions come to understand that this is why I am where I am now. The Good News is that despite my past poor decisions that led me into the enemy’s trap, I still have life left to reconstitute what I have done and to now comport myself to Jesus Christ and seek His Mercy, His For-giveness, and have a conversion, a Metanoia, which is what Jesus said to Nicodemus (Jn 3:3-8); to be “born again”, that is to begin a new way of life based on listening to God, to Jesus, who is the Master that has the formula for a perfected life and Salvation for those who decide to listen to Him and follow Him for the rest of their natural lives, leaving the past in His hands, living the present with passion, and looking to the future with Hope. I consider the three most important decisions in my life to be the following.

1. ENCOUNTER Him. What does this mean? I decided to pause my life’s pursuits to find out who Jesus really is and why He came into this world. Being a Catholic did not necessarily mean that I knew Him; I only knew that He exists, but I did not really know Him. When Jesus passed through the villages, crowds wanted to see Him, but not everyone believed in Him. Even though they took the time to watch Him pass by their lives remained the same because they did not pause to listen to Him, and if they did listen, some did not believe what He said. I decided to take the time to listen to Him, to discern; that is the first decision, to stop and have that ENCOUNTER.

2. LISTEN to Him. It meant taking the time to open my ears and reflect on what He says to me, on the “why” and “what for” He has for me. These are questions I ask, and once I start spending more time listening for Him, the time came when I believed in Him and to know who He really is, and I recognized Him as Savior. This is Metanoia, the great decision of repentance, which means recognizing the poor decisions of the past and accepting His Mercy, His Forgiveness, and, from that moment on, being born again, starting a new life, taking a new path, the safest one! In this second decision lies CONVERSION, which is turning around to change course, because I now believe in the great Master and recognize that, from that day on, He will guide me on my path in life. He declared Himself “I am the Way, the Truth, and the Life” (Jn 14:6).

3. FOLLOW Him. But what does it mean to follow Him? It means walking hand in hand with Jesus as Lord and Savior. It is as if I were a child, I now walk hand in hand with my father, and that gives you se-curity; you no longer walk alone. He promises to be with me every day of my life, and if I believe in Him, I must live in the certainty that He is with me and that one day He will open the Gates of Heaven for me to live Eternally with Him. That is why He came, to show me where I came from and reveal to me where He wants me to go, so that I do not remain lost and trapped by my ill-informed decisions. To follow Him is to be His Disciple, that is, to be a student of the Master. While we are all called to be His Disciples, Jesus specifically named 72 of them to have a deeper connection to Him, a consecration. To-day, that call is still available in the form of YoSoyEl73; a deeper connection to Him as His 73rd Disciple through consecrating your life to Him, I am consecrated to Him and you can be too. I invite you to check it out.

I want to share with you a reading from the Word of God where a man made three decisions that made him the first Pope of the Church. Before, he was Simon, and after these decisions he is known as Peter; he was given a new name because he was born again, reflect on this passage (Luke 5:1-11). There, he and his friends had the Encounter, they stopped what they were doing and listened to Je-sus. They LISTENED to Him and gave their lives to Him. Simon repented and had his CONVERSION, his Metanoia. They left their boats and nets to FOLLOW HIM. So, if you have already made these three decisions, we are united on the path of life, we are “the 73rd disciple,” for one day Jesus “sent out seventy-two disciples who believed in Him on a mission” (Lk 10:1). And if you have not made these decisions, do so soon, lest you become trapped and risk eternal life without God.

These were the three most important decisions of my life. I came to know Him by reading the Bible, the greatest and most important book in this life, and I ask God the Father that every Catholic may know and understand the Sacred Scripture, because it is there that we find answers and learn where we came from, where we are today, and where we are going.

So to recap, 1). Encounter, in your decision process by stopping and seeking-out who He is. 2). Listen, to hear what He has to share which is Salvation, the process of repentance, conversion and metanoia. 3). Follow, He will lead you in the way of discipleship; “for everyone who asks receives, he who seeks finds, to him that knocks, the door will be opened.” I ask for the intercession of our Mother of Guada-lupe before her Son for you, for your family, for that need that weighs the most on your heart at this moment will be lifted. We know that in the Queen of Heaven and Earth we have a refuge, a safe ha-ven for our intentions to be presented before Jesus.

I invite you, during this month in which we celebrate the feast of Jesus Christ, King of the Universe, to begin to truly give Him Lordship over every area of your lives, to truly make Him your only King. Fur-thermore, in this month when the United States celebrates Thanksgiving, I want to take this oppor-tunity to thank each one of you who receive these reflections on Grace and to thank you wholeheart-edly for your generosity during this Journey to “feed the poor” together and nourish them with the Love and Word of God through these means of Mass Media and Metanoia Conferences that you make possible. Thanks also to our Sowers of Jesus with Mary for continuing to bring, thanks to your monthly financial seed, the Good News to the peoples where there is such a need for an encounter with Jesus. Thank you, to the Consecrated, who continue to invite and give your time so that more souls may be-come consecrated to Jesus Christ through the I am 73 Project. May God multiply your time and your offerings, and I pray for you that God’s Providence may always assist you and your families with your daily sustenance. I invite those who have not yet registered for the next Consecration to Jesus through the I am the 73 Project to Scan the QR code and download the app, create an account and reg-ister. The app is also available in Mexico and the US at the App Store. If you are in another country, feel free to contact us at (773) 777-7773. You can also write to the email address: in-fo@iamthe73rd.com and you will be helped with registration to experience this great blessing.

Your friend and servant