Count the blessing, not the cost

HAPPY Easter! Christ is risen, alleluia, alleluia. We now

have the possibility of being a new creation in Christ, patterned

after him and empowered by him!

            If we are truly good men and women, let alone good

Christians, we should just count the many blessings we receive from

God, and be most thankful for them, thinking of how we can best use

them, rather than count the cost and then grumble for the effort and

the deficiencies that may be involved in raising it.

            The basic reality is that we have received a lot more from

God than what we can account for. We should try our best to

acknowledge these many blessings as best as we could. This basic

reality dominates much more than what we think are our deficiencies,

misfortunes and miseries we can have in life.

            And if we sincerely feel that we lack something that we

consider to be necessary in our life, then we can always ask God for

it, with faith, humility and patience, knowing that God is always in

control of things. We should not feel bad, much less, angry or sad or

desperate because of this lack.

            The important thing to do is to discern what God has in

mind for us at any given moment, because that would give us a good

picture of why we have what we have and why we don’t have what we

think we should have.

            In any event, it is always possible that what we have and

what we don’t have are God’s ways of relating us to him. They are not

meant to make us live our life independently of God.

            We can always presume that God always provides us with

everything that we need to live our life and vocation as well as carry

out our mission properly. So we can validly presume that what we have

and what we don’t have are just right for us at the moment.

            Just the same, since our life is like a pilgrimage, we can

also presume that God may want us to discard certain things that we

have at the moment, and look for those that we still do not have.

            Given these two possibilities, what is important is, as

said earlier, to relate ourselves to God always. Without relating

ourselves and our current condition to God, it is possible that the

many blessings we have received from God can harm us rather than do us

good or help us do the things we are supposed to do.

            Again, without relating ourselves and our current

condition to God, it is very likely that we can fall into all sorts of

frustration, anger and even desperation. We can fail to realize that

perhaps it is God’s way of making us go to him, to beg him for this

favor, and in the process, strengthen our relationship with him.

            What we can gather from all these considerations so far is

that we should try to be calm always, so that we can see and judge

things properly. This way we can act with greater prudence, as we can

get to see things more objectively and ultimately to see God’s will

and ways.

          It’s very important that we are always humble. In fact,

our humility should always grow deeper, because this is the only way

for us to see things and judge things properly. It allows faith to act

on us fully as testified by Christ himself who said:

            “I praise you, Father, Lord of heaven and earth, because

you have hidden these things from the wise and learned, and revealed

them to little children.” (Mt 11,25)

            St. James echoes the same idea in his letter: “God opposes

the proud but shows favor to the humble.” (4,6)