Look, find, serve

IT’S a little formula that can be helpful to us in

developing and keeping a close relationship with God. We have to look

for Him in everything that we do and handle so we can find him. And

finding him, we can be drawn to serve him.  This, I believe, is what

loving God actually entails.

   

            We know that God is everywhere. That is in the very

essence of God. It should not be hard to find him if we only exert the

effort the look for him. Yes, even in our most mundane affairs, in the

middle of the pots and pans or while tilling the soil in the farm or

doing some intellectual study and research or engaging in some rocket

science experiments and projects, we should never fail to look, find

and serve God.

             It should be like an instinct, a healthy obsession that we

have to cultivate. This obviously goes beyond our natural powers. The

grace of God is needed, but we should also do our part.

  

            Yes, we have to pray first, asking for that grace. We have

to accompany our prayers with sacrifices and recourse to the

sacraments. This is how we enter into the spiritual and supernatural

level of our life. But we have to do our part.

   

            We have to thoroughly study the doctrine of our faith so

we can have a good picture of who God is and of how he is related to

us and vice-versa. The study should be such that we end up growing in

our hunger for God. We should end up strongly drawn to him, as we

learn who he really is and how much he loves us.

  

            For this alone, we really would need a lot of time and

effort. Unless God himself would appear to us in some extraordinary

and miraculous way, we have no other alternative but to go through the

process of studying and meditating on our faith.

  

            We should be deeply convinced that God is present

everywhere, in all our conditions, circumstances and situations,

whether good or bad. More than that, we have to realize that his

presence is never passive but rather active.

   

            That is, he is always around, ever solicitous of our

needs, full of love and mercy. He is actually guiding us, always

intervening in our lives, ever ready to be of help. We need to fathom

these realities.

  

            In other words, we have to learn how to be truly

contemplatives even while in the middle of the world, immersed in our

earthly and temporal affairs. This is what is ideal for us. And we

just have to make that ideal a reality, always with God’s grace and

our all-out effort.

  

            I imagine that when we do these things, we can always feel

the presence of God, his nearness to us, his fatherly love for us.  We

can see the divine wisdom behind all the events of our life. We would

be filled with joy and peace, and be more motivated to correspond to

God’s tremendous love for us.

  

            Thus, we serve him, and because of him, we serve everybody

else. We would be filled with that attitude that was once expressed by

Christ who said that he came to serve and not to be served. (Cfr. Mt

20,28)

   

            This is what true loving is. It is to give ourselves as

completely as possible without expecting any return. We even give

ourselves to those who do not seem to deserve being served.

  

            Let us always pay attention to Christ’s plea to us: “Ask

and it will be given to you. Seek and you will find. Knock and the

door will be opened to you.” (Mt 7,7) And, “Seek first the kingdom of

God and his righteousness, and all these things will be added unto

you.” (Mt 6,33) Let’s remember that God can never be outdone in

generosity.