IF we have to look for God in our personal and individual capacity, then we have to look for him in our social and public life and activity as well. If we have to look for him and do our best to do his will in our small everyday affairs, then we have to do even more in our big, extraordinary issues.
We need to be reminded of this basic truth as we now live in a world that is increasingly globalized economically, politically and technologically. We cannot allow this fundamental need of our lives to be taken for granted.
Many false reasons are often presented to explain why God, faith and religion should be kept private and personal. Among them we can cite the thinking that since we are living in an increasingly multi-cultural world, we have to be tolerant and should just keep quiet about things spiritual and supernatural.
There’s also the belief that moral and spiritual considerations would just hamper our freedom and autonomy, our creativity and practicality. Many people, even the leading men and women in the fields of politics, business, technology, etc., consider any reference to God in their work as a hindrance, a danger or an embarrassment.
We need to explode these myths since, aside from having no basis, they actually pose a great danger to our culture and civilization. Nothing could make us more tolerant and open-minded of the world’s multi-culture, and respectful and enhancing of freedom, autonomy, creativity and practicality than a functional and living relationship with God.
We need to remember that our capacity to be tolerant and our endowments of freedom, autonomy, creativity and practicality are all gifts from God. They are not just products purely of our own making. They need to be lived and practiced in and with God always, and not just depending on our own ideas and theories, no matter how brilliant.
For sure, there are problems and difficulties in putting God always into the picture, but these do not detract from the fact that we have the duty to actively look for God in all our human affairs, big and small.
Problems and difficulties there will always be. We just have to find ways to solve or resolve them. They are not meant to stop us from doing what we ought, but rather to spur us more to action. But what is needed is first of all to dismantle that unspoken practical atheism or agnosticism that’s afflicting many of us.
This is the real problem besetting us, made worse by the fact that we often do not talk about it, and so it grows and worsens, it festers in a quiet but most effective way.
We need to tighten our life of faith and religion, our relation with God, for that is the basis of the way we live and go about our earthly affairs, the way we treat others and react to problems, the way we pursue our dreams and face the consequences of our actions, both good and bad, both the successful ones and the mistakes and failures.
We should never dare to live by ourselves alone, relying only on our own devices, our own powers, no matter how they may seem to be impressive. This way of life is like putting ourselves in an ocean in a storm, riding a puny and badly-equipped boat.
So in this regard, it would be good that in every step of our pursuit for progress and development in all fields of human endeavour, be it in business, politics or technology, we should deliberately see how our actions, inventions, discoveries, etc., bring us closer to God and to one another, how they foster more charity and solidarity, etc.
We should never take this crucial part of our human activities for granted, presuming that everyone would just be guided properly on his own. There has to be an explicit vision of how these developments serve God and others spiritually and morally.
Especially in the field of technology right now, where I am quite amazed at how the new gadgets can do a lot of wonders, benefits and advantages, we need to be clearly guided about them, because the possibilities for abuse and for doing graver evils with them are also aplenty.
There should be some instructions and reminders of how to use them for the greater glory of God and for real service to mankind, instead of making them tools for self-centeredness. The young ones, prone to confusion, especially need this guidance.
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