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1. During this Exodus I have learned this about God (attentive to the Lord):

"He wants a relationship with me, and like any relationship, this requires time and work, but also faith and willingness to be vulnerable." - Nahme

"His ways are way above our ways." - Jimmy

"That He is always there for me, waiting for me." - Anonymous

"My time spent (and quality of time) in prayer greatly improved with Exodus. Still room to continue improving, but I now know how to begin." - Joe M.

"During this lent40, what has struck me more than anything else, is how God desires us to willingly, and with love for Him, strive to be perfect, even as he is perfect, and that to even approach that type of perfection, only comes through sacrifice of those things in our life that separate us from Him, and surrender to the law and divine will of God, so that we may be set apart from the world, so that by fasting from worldly things and the pleasures of the flesh, and choosing instead to always seek and to please Him, we can be transformed by the renewal of our minds. To quote John, "He must I increase, but I must decrease" so the less I am conformed to the world and my own selfish will, the more Christ can increase within me, and the more pleasing I become to the father." - Art

"His love for us is not earned by things we do." - Anonymous

"He is merciful and loving." - David

"He is always there for me, always ready to listen... He truly has unlimited love for me... If I open up my heart to Him,  He will give me the grace to solve the problems, anxieties, and sins that separate me from Him." - Jim

"You call me master and teacher and rightly so, but now I call you friends. To me you start with obedience to clear the way to a friendship with Jesus. Friendships demand sacrifice and carving time away from busy days to allow that to unfold. Jesus wants disciples, but also friends." - Rob

"I learned a lot and I feel closer to Christ." - Nick

"He wants to draw us closer." - Anonymous

"Learned to surrender and allow God to expand within rather than to continuously seek solutions to my issues. God desires us in spite of our failings, we do not need to be perfect as that is not humanly possible." - Rusty

"That he desires us as is and wants to be with us." - Andrew

"It is all about our relationship not what He can or will do for us. God desires us as is and wants to be with us." - Randall

"God loves me regardless of what I think of myself." - Eric

"It’s ok to fail. Just get back up with Hes grace." - Raul

"I increased my time in silence, reading, meditating and doing my holy hour most of the days." - Dcn. Alvaro

"I’ve learned that I was becoming complacent in my routines. In my complacency I forgot God in some ways. In my day to day activities I was busy with the details. I was not slowing down to offer my troubles and trials to Him. I was not praying about them. I was trying to solve the problems of my life without Him. That even though I had forgotten God in my habits and routines, He had not forgotten me. He was patiently waiting for me to re-engage our relationship, to spend time with Him, to pray to Him, to offer my struggles up to Him. That regular prayer is a consoling gift." - Reuben

 

2. During this Exodus I have learned this about myself (attentive to our own hearts):
 

"I was being very selfish with my time, and the more selfish, the more empty I felt.  Spending an hour daily with the Lord is the best gift I can give myself, my wife, my family, and my friends." - Nahme

"The world has an enormous hold on me and breaking free is much harder than I thought." - Anonymous

"I learned exactly where my idols were." - Joe

"During this lent40, I have taken great notice of my own suffering, and how before, I carried it on my own. All the hardships, pain, and loss I had accumulated over much of my life, (much of it following naturally from my own bad decisions) had grown so heavy, and I felt so alone carrying it all, that I had grown spiritually numb. But as I have focused on Christs passion, and His love and mercy for us, how He carried the cross, and took on so much suffering for our sake, I found that I am not alone, and that by striving to imitate His example, of perfect love and understanding, even those pains in life which are unavoidable and not due to any fault of ours, we can endure with sweetness by offering our suffering up to Him, and practicing Christ like compassion for those people and circumstances who cause us pain." - Art

"I had many things that were pharaohs that I never realized." - Anonymous

"I have the capacity to connect with God in ways I never imagined." - Jim

"All interactions with another human being is an opportunity to partake in God’s glory. Like other introverts I’ve generally kept to myself and have struggled with cheerfulness. At times even if you don’t “feel” like being cheerful, just do it anyway. Often the actual behavior will follow suit with imposed habit. Being cheerful, friendly can only improve a situation and will be more helpful to those you’re journeying with in life." - Rob

"I was able to make a schedule and it was nice to grow closer to my wife while she was doing Fiat." - Nick

"I am way too used to comfort." - Anonymous

"As I prepared for baptism there was much I did not understand and still do not. How wrong I was to judge myself based on comparison with others I believed to be living rightly with God. This is how I viewed myself; yet God does not judge me by the standards of others. Nor will he reward me for blindly following the group. How can I develop a personal relationship with God by simply following along? “Trust in the Lord with all your heart, and do not lean on your own understanding; in all your ways submit to him, and he will make your paths straight.” (Proverbs 3:5-6). God became one of us for our salvation and through Jesus we find forgiveness and mercy, if only we ask. I never asked for fear of rejection. Fear of rejection! How silly and misguided this world has become that we are made to believe in fear. Fear is the great divider. It separates us from each other, from being honest with ourselves. It muddles the mind resulting in anxiety as we worry about rejection, work, my wife, life, it goes on. Fear separates us from God. Fear in some form has ruled my mind. Learning to let go, and allow myself to surrender has calmed my mind, cleared my thinking and allowed for others to break through the hard line of defense. Most importantly, surrendering to God has changed the way I view the world. Surrendering without fear, has allowed me to “begin” to form a relationship with God." - Rusty

"I am full of faults but yet God still loves me." - Randall

"I desire a deeper relationship with God, while here on earth." - Eric

"I recognized that weakness parts in which I need to focus more on my relationship with our Lord, my family and others." - Dcn. Alvaro

"Did things that I thought impossible." - Bob

"In the past few years I have lost a great deal of my hearing from using headphones. The same has happened with my ability to hear the Lord. I will never get my hearing back but over these 90 days, I was able to hear the Lord again." - Brian

"I have been more attentive to the needs of people who call me during my workday. I have been far too judgmental of others that I do not know." - Allen

"Exodus has taught me that I was depending on my routines to carry me through life. My rules to guide me. I was not thinking about my purpose. In my complacency I was not allowing room for God to guide me. I was blocking God in a way.  I learned that I need prayer regularly in my life. With prayer I was able to intentionally come back to God regularly and invite Him in. I learned that by removing things that I was indulging in that I had to think about what I was doing with my life. This made room in my life for God to grant graces to me that would allow me to refocus on my vocation, my family. I was able to refocus on my relationship with my wife and raising my kids. I don’t know that I can go back to what I was doing. Not that I was ignoring my family, but I was not giving them all that I could. If I were to go back to my old routines it would be at the cost of my family. Then I’d have to answer for that. I’ve seen that when I engage my family, they do so much better. I know that brings glory to God!" - Reuben