Transcript

Speaker 1: Answer me, Lord, answer me that this people may know that you, Lord, are God, and that you have brought them back to their senses. The Lord's fire came down and consumed the burnt offering wood, stones, and dust, and it lapped up the water in the trench. Welcome back to Scripture for your inner outcasts. It's June 10th, 2026, Wednesday of the 10th week in Ordinary Time. I'll be providing the reflection for today's episode. My name is Elizabeth and I'm the producer and host of Scripture for Your Inner Outcasts. In today's mass readings. The first reading comes from the first book of Kings, chapter 18. And this is the story where we've got the prophet Elijah speaking to a group of Israelites, and some of them have fallen away from their Jewish faith and have stopped following the true God and have started following ball, the false idol. So this is a very long reading where we've got the story of Elijah speaking to the people and giving a test, and having the people call on their false idol, Baal, to receive a sign from him. And then Elijah does the same to the true God of Israel to receive a sign from him. And of course, the true God is the one that gives the sign to the people of Israel. So in this reading, we hear Elijah say, answer me, Lord, answer me, that this people may know that you, Lord, are God, and that you have brought them back to their senses. The Lord's fire came down and consumed the burnt offering wood, stones, and dust, and it lapped up the water in the trench.

Speaker 1: So this story makes me think about God images and a God image. Just to review, if you have been listening to this podcast for a while, or our sister podcast, Interior Integration for Catholics, a God image is who we emotionally believe and perceive God to be in each of our parts. And it may or may not be true to who he actually is. And each of our parts can have a different God image. So in this reading, we see an example of somebody who believes in God. Elijah seemingly putting God to the test. He's asking for a sign. And then God does give him a sign. In this case, the sign was setting fire to the burnt offerings. And this makes me think of the God image of a vending machine God. Or at least if that's not the proper term for the God image. That's the way that I conceive of this particular God image. So speaking to all the parts that are listening right now, but especially to the young, young, childlike, exiled parts, I want to ask, do you have a vending machine God image? Do you think that you can put coins into God and get out a result? Because on one level reading it seems that these scripture verses prove that God is like a vending machine because Elijah prays for something, prays for fire, and boom, God gives him fire. He asks and he receives. And there's a very clear relationship between that. I don't know what your experience is with prayer, but have you had experiences where you ask God for something and then you actually receive it? Or have you had experiences where you ask God for something and you don't receive it? Or worse, you feel like you receive silence.

Speaker 1: Not only did you not receive a yes or a no, but you received no answer at all. If you young exiled parts hold a vending machine God image, then it can be really tempting to believe that your relationship with the Lord is transactional. You might think that I have to do such and such things in order to get such and such results, and if such and such results do not present themselves to you, that can be really devastating. So I just want to say in conclusion that although it could seem like God is a vending machine based on this first reading from today, he actually isn't. He's a lot more than a vending machine. And I'd encourage you to consider how you do view God. If you do view him as a vending machine, and if you do, maybe seek resources to learn who God really is. Many of our parts carry distorted and untrue perceptions of who God is, and these are sometimes called God images. If you'd like to learn more about this concept, I'd recommend you check out our sister podcast, Interior Integration for Catholics, episodes 23 through 29, which is linked in the description of today's show. With that, we'll end with our invocations Our Lady, our mother, Untier of knots. Pray for us, Saint Joseph, pray for us. Saint John the Baptist pray for us.