Archives for May 2023

Believing Is Seeing (Miracles): “According to Your Faith, Let It Be Done to You.”

By Anita Mathias

Matthew records, As Jesus walked on, two blind men followed him, calling out, “Have mercy on us, Son of David!”

He asked them, “Do you believe that I am able to do this?”

“Yes, Lord,” they replied.

Then he touched their eyes and said, “According to your faith, let it be done to you”; and their sight was restored.

According to your faith, let it be done to you, is among Jesus’

most life-changing, startling, almost terrifying statements.

The sightless eyes of the two men could not physically

see Jesus any more than our sighted eyes can. But they sensed

his kindness and his power. They prayed a simple, potent prayer,

“the Jesus Prayer:” Jesus, have mercy on us. And they were healed.

Faith is to see God as He is, the prodigal father, running

to hug you when you return repentant, ashamed, and weary.

It is to ask him for mercy. Faith is to see the Lord Jesus who

calls us his friends, stand beside you, power radiating from him.

Faith is knowing that, on request, the Spirit comes to you.

Faith is to ask these three to lay their healing hands on the

neurons of your burnt-out, agitated, distracted, looping mind,

and to heal your overwrought emotions, which can swerve into anger.

Because of the goodness and mercy of God, you know this

healing has, of course, started, right now, because

you prayed, and you can go on your way, whistling.

Faith is to refuse to worry, or to fear but to put our problems

into the hands of Christ, who changed the molecular structure

of bread and fish, multiplying them a thousand-fold. Faith is to

know his power extends over the nitty-gritty of our lives, “for there

is not a square inch in the whole domain of our human existence

over which Christ, who is Sovereign over all, does not cry, “Mine.” ”

As we pray with faith, seeing Jesus, we are often given

the very thing we ask for. The transcript of our prayers

becomes the transcript of our lives, as Mark Batterson says.

BUT. We live in an already, not-yet kingdom. Not every prayer

will be answered affirmatively. We are not the best writers

of the thriller of our lives. Our plot would have us ascend

the ladder of success, fame, wealth, and being praised which has

no ends, and brings only more striving, disappointment, and exhaustion.

But though Christ can sovereignly multiply the fruits of our labours,

following is not about success, wealth or fame. It is about

learning to love God, and to love people. And God’s Noes

and Not-yets develop our strength and character as surely

as his Yeses do, and through it all, through it all,

his love envelops us, and, on request, we can sip his joy.

If you’d like to read my previous recorded meditations, they are here.

If you’d like to follow these meditations the moment they appear, please subscribe to Christian Meditation with Anita Mathias at Apple Podcasts, Spotify or

Amazon Music or Audible. And I would be very grateful for reviews and ratings!!

And, of course, I would love you to read my memoir, fruit of much “blood, sweat, toil and tears.”

Rosaries, Reading, Secrets: A Catholic Childhood in India in the UK, and in the US, here, well, and widely available, online, worldwide 🙂

Jesus Knows the Best Way to Do What You Are Best At

By Anita Mathias

So Matthew records: Then Jesus got into the boat and his disciples followed him. Suddenly a furious storm came up on the lake, so that the waves swept over the boat. But Jesus was sleeping. The disciples went and woke him, saying, “Lord, save us! We’re going to drown!”

He replied, “You of little faith, why are you so afraid?” Then he got up and rebuked the winds and the waves, and it was completely calm.

The men were amazed and asked, “What kind of man is this? Even the winds and the waves obey him!” Matthew 8: 23-27.

So Jesus, a charismatic carpenter, keeps teaching Peter, a fisherman,

a man of the sea, the same lesson, again and again. That he, Jesus,

knew the absolute best way to do everything. Including–fishing.

When Peter had laboured all night and caught nothing, Jesus

tells him to cast his nets on the right side and they were

unable to haul in the bountiful catch. Jesus walked on the

waters of a lake, and calmed sea-storms which raged while

he slept in the boat. He showed off his mastery over their

profession, showing that the very cleverest thing they could do,

always, was to check in with him for his guidance and direction.

When we feel hard-pressed and incompetent, we desperately ask Jesus

for help. And he can graciously add a one before our zeroes.

However, when we feel competent, educated, experienced, or gifted,

it’s even more crucial to not rely on these limited gifts, but to ask Jesus

to take the wheel, to show us the best way to do things and to bless

them. Then he can add zeroes after our one talent, transforming it

into something with exponential blessing for us and for the world.

Avoid the folly of doing anything without checking in

with Jesus. Keep asking: “Jesus, do I need to be doing this

at all?” And: “Please, show me the best way to do it.”

In the most successful thing I’ve ever done, co-founding

a small business which has wholly supported our family

for the last thirteen years, I’ve had to rely on God’s guidance

because I had lacked the training, education, skills, or temperament

for it. And God added a 1 before my zeroes, and blessed it.

Conversely, I have been relatively unsuccessful in the one thing

I had the education, training, some talent and a deep love for–

that is, writing–because I have done it in my own strength, often without

even thinking of asking God for guidance or direction. And without

surrender. But since God is still writing the story of my life, it’s not too

late to train myself to ask God for guidance, and blessing on my writing.

God gives us gifts of good genes, education, opportunity or resources.

But everything we have is God’s, and things can change in a moment.

So the safest thing we can do is to surrender everything we have to God, and

to continually ask him how to do things his way, so He can supernaturally,

exponentially touch, bless and multiply the work of our hands.

If you’d like to read my previous recorded meditations, they are here.

I would love you to read my memoir, fruit of much “blood, sweat, toil and tears.”

Rosaries, Reading, Secrets: A Catholic Childhood in India in the UK, and in the US, here, well, and widely available, online, worldwide 🙂

If you’d like to follow these meditations the moment they appear, please subscribe to Christian Meditation with Anita Mathias at Apple Podcasts, Spotify or

Amazon Music or Audible. And I would be very grateful for reviews and ratings!!

On Using Anger as a Trigger to Transform Ourselves

By Anita Mathias

Dear friends, I am continuing my series of short meditations on the Gospel of Matthew. This one, the eight in the series, concludes the meditations on the sublime Sermon on the Mount. Thank you for reading along!

On Using Anger as a Trigger to Transform Ourselves

“Do not judge, or you too will be judged,” Jesus says. “For in the same way you judge others, you will be judged, and with the measure you use, it will be measured to you.”

“Why do you look at the speck of sawdust in your brother’s eye and pay no attention to the plank in your own eye? How can you say to your brother, ‘Let me take the speck out of your eye,’ when all the time there is a plank in your own eye? You hypocrite, first take the plank out of your own eye, and then you will see clearly to remove the speck from your brother’s eye.

And so, Jesus reiterates a law of life: sowing and reaping. “Those

who draw the sword will perish by the sword,” he says. The

swift to condemn will be judged more harshly. For the seeds we plant

in the garden of our lives–our secret thoughts, our words, and the

kindness or meanness of our actions determine our flourishing.

We reap what we have sown in unexpected ways and at unexpected

times, since God, the righteous Judge, observes both our generosity

and our unkindness towards those we judged powerless to help

or harm us, and God holds our lives in his hands.

Jesus does not condemn accurately reading character. That

is an essential life skill—to realise that not everyone is trustworthy,

honest, truthful or decent. Indeed, Jesus warns us about

deceptive, smooth-talking people–“wolves in sheep’s clothing,”

out to devour you. Assess people by the fruit of their lives,

he says; thornbushes don’t bear figs.

However, dwelling on another’s faults, while ignoring our own,

invites judgement, Jesus says. He recommends using our irritation

with annoying or evil people as a reminder and trigger for

self-examination. When we are bothered by a speck in another’s eyes,

Jesus recommends checking if we have a whole log of the same

failing or a greater one in our own eyes. (Interestingly, Freud says

we are most infuriated by our own faults mirrored in other people!).

Obsessive judging is wasted time and energy. We must train ourselves

to refocus that energy into transforming those blind spots, limps, and

cracks in our characters, which so often destroy the house of people’s lives.

Besides, fretting over others’ faults leads only to evil, as the Psalmist says.

We unconsciously imitate speech and character traits we dwell on!

Read a good stylist, and you write better; focus on another’s stinginess,

manipulativeness, or dishonest self-promotion, and you risk mirroring it.

And what of us who’ve been judgey and critical? When we

repent, we live “under the mercy,” in Charles Williams’ phrase.

Jesus forgave Peter, who betrayed him, and he will forgive us.

God devises a unique calling suited to both the naturally sweet and

the naturally outspoken and no-nonsense. Whatever seeds you

have sown into your life, thistles or grapes, place them in the hands

of the God of redemption. Ask him to make the garden of your life

bloom, and to help you do the work he has given you to do.

I would love you to read my memoir, fruit of much “blood, sweat, toil and tears.”

Rosaries, Reading, Secrets: A Catholic Childhood in India in the UK, and in the US, here, well, and widely available, online, worldwide 🙂

If you’d like to follow these meditations the moment they appear, please subscribe to Christian Meditation with Anita Mathias at Apple Podcasts, Spotify or

Amazon Music

or Audible. And I would be very grateful for reviews and ratings!!

If you’d like to read my previous recorded meditations,

9 Do Not Worry About What To Eat: Jesus

8. Happy Are the Merciful for They Shall Be Shown Mercy

7 The Power of Christ’s Resurrection. For Us. Today

6 Each Individual’s Unique and Transforming Call and Vocation

5 Change Your Life by Changing Your Thoughts

4 Do not be Afraid–But be as Wise as a Serpent

3 Our Failures are the Cracks Through Which God’s Power Enters our Lives

2 The World is full of the Glory of God

1 Mindfulness is Remembering the Presence of Christ with us.

Thank you 🙂

Do Not Worry About What To Eat: Jesus

By Anita Mathias

^“Look at the birds of the air; they do not sow or reap or store away in barns, and yet your heavenly Father feeds them. Are you not much more valuable than they? Can any one of you by worrying add a single hour to your life^[e]?

So do not worry, saying, ‘What shall we eat?’ or ‘What shall we drink?’ or ‘What shall we wear?’ For the pagans run after all these things, and your heavenly Father knows that you need them. But seek first his kingdom and his righteousness, and all these things will be given to you as well.” Matthew 6

So Jesus advises his listeners–fishermen who had worked all night

and caught nothing, unemployed labourers, and those without food

for their guests—not to worry about what they were going to eat.

And when Jesus speaks, that man who visited from a world

beyond our world, to share the deep secrets of life and the

universe, we would be wise to listen up.

Jesus tells his original listeners that, by an effort of will, they must quit

wasting time and energy fretting about what they would eat, must

quit worrying about money, and instead trust the God who sustains

singing birds who never save a single worm. They must ask, seek and

knock on God’s door for wisdom and good ideas to meet their daily needs.

Of course, today, with an obesogenic food environment

and an obesity epidemic, we worry just as much about the sugary

fatty, ultra-processed foods everywhere, which lead to weight gain,

society’s condemnation, and our self-condemnation–pressure

which leads to further overeating. Having lost 82 pounds, I know

the difficulty of shedding weight and the fear of regaining it.

But we, like Jesus’s listeners, must refuse to worry about fattening

food, weight loss, and weight regain, but instead, live as God’s beloved

children, eating what our hosts set before us, without fuss,

as Jesus advised his disciples, and trusting our health to God.

Of course, Jesus does want us to reflect his “endless energy, boundless

strength” in Eugene Peterson’s phrase, and, being kind and practical,

he gives us strategies. Jesus recommends fasting, which brings a reward

from God and gives us power over oppressive forces of evil. Fasting

is sheer Jesus-genius, skipping a meal, saving time and money while

burning up metabolically active, inflammatory, toxin-storing fat which

overweight bodies don’t need. Hunger pangs which are temporary waves,

rising, receding, passing, are an internal bodily reminder, a trigger

and an alarm clock to pray about our worries. And the force

and power of persistent prayer slowly changes our lives.

Do not worry, Jesus says, but seek first God’s kingdom and his

righteousness, and all the things the pagans run after will

be added to you. How does that work in the area of weight and health?

Well, the greatest commandment, Jesus says, is to love God with all

one’s strength. I have been incorporating movement into my spiritual

life, praying, and listening to the Bible and the book for my Christian

book group on my morning walk. And when my body buzzes

with endorphins, my mind and emotions work better, and my spirit soars.

And then Jesus says: the second commandment is like the first-

Love your neighbour as yourself. I’m trying to use movement

to bless others, too, decluttering my house of unnecessary acquisitions

from 33 years of marriage, working on my large garden to make it

a place of joy and hospitality, hanging out with friends during long

walks rather than over meals, and getting my body a little stronger

and fitter for life through “exercise snacks:” several daily

mini-sessions of yoga, weights, HIIT, dance, or rebounding.

The Father feeds the birds, which, like all wild creatures, instinctively

only eat what is a blessing to their little bodies. Seeking the kingdom,

acting as if Jesus were our visible beloved King, is refusing to eat a curse

on ourselves by eating food we know will not bless our bodies, but instead

slow them down by weight gain. For me, it’s sugar, wheat, rice, grains,

potatoes. We each have a unique metabolism created by genetics, our

biography, and our psychological makeup, and so we must ask the Spirit

to guide our minds and intuitions to a way of eating which blesses our bodies.

Seeking to establish God’s micro-kingdom in our own lives also means

getting our bodies fit enough to do the work God has given us to do.

Losing weight, getting fit, is like a conversion experience, completely

life-changing. As we bear this micro-cross of self-discipline without

which, Jesus said, we are not worthy of him, let’s pray we experience

the paradox he spoke of–that the yoke of following him is oddly

easy and light. May it be so. Amen.

This is a meditation on Matthew, Chapter 6

I would love you to read my memoir, fruit of much “blood, sweat, toil and tears.”

Rosaries, Reading, Secrets: A Catholic Childhood in India in the UK, and in the US, here, well, and widely available, online, worldwide 🙂

If you’d like to follow these meditations the moment they appear, please subscribe to Christian Meditation with Anita Mathias at Apple Podcasts, Spotify or

Amazon Music

or Audible.

And I would be grateful for reviews and ratings!!

If you’d like to read my previous recorded meditations,

8. Happy Are the Merciful for They Shall Be Shown Mercy

7 The Power of Christ’s Resurrection. For Us. Today

6 Each Individual’s Unique and Transforming Call and Vocation

5 Change Your Life by Changing Your Thoughts

4 Do not be Afraid–But be as Wise as a Serpent

3 Our Failures are the Cracks Through Which God’s Power Enters our Lives

2 The World is full of the Glory of God

1 Mindfulness is Remembering the Presence of Christ with us.