Does Your Life Say “God” Loudly?

14 March 2026  Hosea 6:1-6

Saturday of the Third Week of Lent

“Your piety is like a morning cloud, like the dew that early passes away.” (Hosea 6:4)

If you want to know the state of your piety, check your habits. You can tell a lot about people by their habits.

You can tell a lot about people by looking at their calendar. What are the things they make time for every day? What are the places where you are most likely to see their car? What are the things they do at the same time every day? The places we make sure we go, and the things we do there, in large degree determine the kind of people we are. Do those places and the things we do there say “God” very loudly?

You can tell a lot about people by what they have in their pockets, by the things they have in their hands when they leave the house in the morning, and when they come back at suppertime.

The late-Senator Diane Feinstein once challenged a Catholic nominee to the Supreme Court, saying, “The dogma lives loudly in you.” The correct response to such a challenge is, “Yes.”

The things we put our hands on in large degree determine the kind of people we are. Likewise the things we touch only once in a while, the things we keep in a drawer and take out only occasionally. Do the things we touch so much that we have them in our pockets, and the things we touch rarely if ever, say “God” very loudly?

You can tell a lot about people by the things they say, and by the things they never say, by the topics they bring up, and the topics they never bring up. The topics that find their way into speech tell people what is most frequently on our minds, and the things that never find their way into speech tell others where our boundaries are, the lines we will never cross. Do the things on our minds, and the boundaries we stop at, say “God” very loudly?

You can tell a lot about people by the things they keep nearby the places where they sit down, or where they lie down, the things they put on the wall nearest the places where they rest. That tells you what they have chosen to look at in the places where they spend the largest chunks of discretionary time. Do the things we have nearby in those places where we have the most time to think say “God” very loudly?

God wants to be on our minds all the time. He wants our love for Him to be determinative of our choice of where to live, where to work, whom to marry, and how to spend our money. He does not want to be the God of “once in a while” – that’s the way people treat the ones they are having an affair with. He definitely does not want to be the God of one day in April, and another in late December. “Watch your words,” a wise person once said, “for your words become your thoughts, and your thoughts become your actions, and your actions become your habits, and your habits become your character, and your character becomes your destiny.” The trajectory of the things on our minds certainly does determine the kind of persons we are, and the kind of persons we are becoming. Where is it all going?

The late-Senator Diane Feinstein once challenged a Catholic nominee to the Supreme Court, saying, “The dogma lives loudly in you.” The correct response to such a challenge is, “Yes.”

What is living most loudly in you?