Settling accounts

AMONG the many important duties of any serious business enterprise is to settle or at least balance the accounts in a regular fashion. Retail stores, for example, have to monitor their stocks at the end of the day. Failure in that can mean disaster for them in a day or two.

In our spiritual lives, it is also important that we settle accounts with God regularly. In fact, saints and the Church herself have recommended that we make a daily examination of conscience just before going to bed.

This is to see if the day went as it should, that is, if love for God and neighbor is really the motive of all our actions, and so that we at least can be reconciled with God no matter how the day went. We should at least say sorry to God, even if we still have to do things to make up for our mistakes and sins.

This is an important task, because more than just resting physically, mentally or emotionally, we need to be at peace with God at the end of the day. God is everything to us. Regardless of our status at the moment, whether good or bad, moral or immoral, God not only will tell us what to do but also will give us what we need at that time.

God is always available, and what he gives us is also what we actually and ultimately need. What he gives us is at least the actual grace that we need to be able to act good. If corresponded to properly, the actual grace can bring back the state of grace to us.

While present in every good act that we make, this actual grace is far beyond what any human solution to our human problems—health, financial, etc.—can give. This grace infuses the spiritual and supernatural character of our actions.

Again this is something that we have to be more aware of. We often understand our actions as purely human, if not purely material or of economic, political, social coverage only. Our human acts have a spiritual and supernatural character because first of all we are persons, and then we too are made children of God created in his image and likeness.

In other words, our actions are not meant only to solve human problems. Rather they are meant to please God or to comply with his will, which is what loving God is all about.

To be able to do this, we need to live always in the presence of God, talking to him, asking him questions, begging him for help, especially these days when we often find ourselves in confusing situations or grappling with daunting problems and difficulties.

Our Lord is the “way, the truth and the life.” He may not give us the technical solutions to our problems, but he definitely will give us the ultimate solution, which is how to bear everything, no matter how difficult or erroneous, for love of God. In short, he gives not only solutions, but his own self to bring us back to him where we truly belong.

Our Lord teaches us how to be patient and optimistic, how to derive good from evil, how to find meaning in every situation we may find ourselves in, whether we are in the peak of success or in the depth of failure. He shows us the true value of sacrifice as well as our human joys here on earth.

God gives us more than what we want or expect. And what he gives us complies more with what in his wisdom is truly proper for us than we think is good for us. God knows better even if what he does with us would involve some suffering.

For our part, we just have to try our best to discern what God really wants to give or do with us. That’s why we always need to ask from him in our prayer for more light and strength, more joy and peace. We should refrain from reacting to events and developments from a purely human point of view.

We need to find a thread to keep up our conversation with God, linking everything to him, including our failures, mistakes and sins. We need time to reflect on our need to be with him always, seeing the intimate relation everything, including our sins, has with him.

We need time to make these truths sink in and become operative convictions that guide us in our life. This will help to settle accounts with God always.