Trust God and be fearless

WHEN Christ told his disciples, “Therefore fear them not, for nothing is covered that shall not be revealed, nor hid, that shall not be known,” (Mt 10,26) he was practically reassuring them—and now, us—that our courage in the face of whatever fear we may have in this life should be rooted in God’s knowledge, his power and faithfulness to those who believe and confess him. 

 We should not let other people’s hostility control us. The lesson to draw is that even if others may misunderstand us, or slander and persecute us, God in the end will reveal what is true and bring everything into the open. 

 We should not worry too much about the misunderstanding and even hatred that others may have against us, because we have been given all the assurances that if we are with God, everything would just turn our right. 

 Evil does not have the last word, unless we let it. It is the good that will have the last word. And so, we just have to learn how to go through such things even to the extent of cooperating with evil materially, not formally, if only to change things for the better. 

 In this, we should look at Christ not only as the model but also and most especially as the power to enable us to derive good from evil regardless of all the dirt involved in the process. 

 What we are asked to fear is to fear offending God. Christ articulated this truth when he said, “Fear not them that kill the body, and not able to kill the soul. Rather, fear him that can destroy both soul and body in hell.” (Mt 10,28) 

 We have to know when to be afraid and when not. We have to distinguish between a good fear and a bad fear, a healthy one and a sick one. We need to know how to handle and deal with our fears that are unavoidable in our life. 

 Fear is an emotion that we need to educate also. It just cannot be on its own, guided only by our spontaneous judgments and reactions, and appearing when it’s not supposed to, and not appearing when it’s supposed to. It has to be grounded and oriented properly, expressing the sublimity of our dignity as persons and children of God. 

 Let’s remember that among the gifts of the Holy Spirit is the fear of the Lord. It’s the good and healthy fear of a child who is afraid to offend his father. It’s a filial fear, not a servile one. It’s one that, instead of being tempted to run away from God, would rather motivate one to get closer to him. 

It’s the fear of losing God, even if we may have offended him and have to do something to atone and repair. It’s the fear that we should foster, especially these days when we see a lot of people who are not afraid anymore to offend God. Though to be fair, we can also say that many do not fear God anymore because in the first place they don’t know him. No one fears what he doesn’t know. 

 In all our affairs and situations in life, we should always go to God to ask for his help and guidance, and to trust his ways and his providence, even if the outcome of our prayers and petitions appears unanswered, if not, contradicted. 

 This should be the attitude to have. It’s an attitude that can only indicate our unconditional faith and love for God who is always in control of things, and at the same time can also leave us in peace and joy even at the worst of the possibilities.

Bank with eternity, not with earth

THAT’S practically what can come to our mind when we consider Christ’s words to his disciples: “Lay not up to yourselves treasures on earth, where the rust and moth consume, and where thieves break through and steal. But lay up to yourselves treasures in heaven, where neither the rust nor moth consumes, and where thieves do not break through nor steal.” (Mt 6,19-20) 

 It’s like saying that we should invest in what would last for eternity, where God keeps it. This can only mean that we should put our heart into things with eternal value, prioritizing eternal rewards over earthly gain. 

 I suppose what all this means is that we should take care of our heart, of what is truly inside our heart, for what we keep there will determine what we will be in the end. It’s a matter of ordering our desires and intentions toward what cannot perish, and that can only be God. 

 We need to see to it that even as we immerse ourselves as deeply as possible in our earthly affairs, we do not lose our sense of heaven and eternity. In fact, the ideal is that as we go deeper in our temporal affairs, our sense of heaven and eternity should also become sharper. 

 This is always possible and doable as long as we are guided first of all by our faith rather than by our feelings and by our merely human estimation of things. Let’s always remember that it is our faith, our Christian faith, that gives the whole picture of our life—where we come from, where we are supposed to go, the purpose of our life here on earth, the true value of our mundane concerns, etc. 

 Let’s be theological in our thinking and reaction to the things of this world. For that, we, of course, would need some training. It should consist of always referring things to God, whatever they may be—good or bad, a success or a failure, a victory or a defeat, etc. We need to feel the urge to do so. 

 In short, we have to keep our spiritual and supernatural bearing which should involve a certain detachment from the things of the world. For this detachment to be lived, we should assume a certain spirit of gamesmanship or sportsmanship, since the effectiveness of our earthly affairs is not so much in whether we win or succeed in them as in whether we manage to refer them to God whatever the outcome. 

 We try to do our best to win in whatever endeavor we do, but just the same, whether we win or lose we remain happy and assured that we are all friends, brothers and sisters, and children of God. 

 The detachment involved here can be of the heroic type as illustrated in the gospel. “If your hand or your foot causes you to stumble,” Christ said, “cut it off and throw it away. It is better for you to enter life maimed or crippled than to have two hands or two feet and be thrown eternal fire. And if your eye causes you to stumble, gouge it out and throw it away. It is better for you to enter life with one eye than to have two eyes and be thrown into the fire of hell.” (Mt 18,8-9) 

 Though these words should not be taken too literally, we have to understand that we have to be ready to take extraordinary means if only to stay the course in our earthly activities.

Pray simply and from the heart

THAT’S what Christ practically told his disciples as to how to pray. “When you are praying, speak not much, as the heathens. For they think that in their much speaking they may be heard,” he said. He then continued: “Be not you therefore be like to them, for your Father knows what is needful for you, before you ask him.” (Mt 6,7-8) And he concluded by saying the Lord’s Prayer or the Our Father. 

 This prayer is the model prayer because, first of all, it came directly from Christ who can rightly be regarded as the master and model of prayer since he gives us what the Father gave him. And as the Word made flesh and as our Savior, he knows our needs and teaches us how to express them. He is the perfect link, perfect mediator between God and man. 

 This prayer is the model prayer also because it gathers the whole Christian Gospel into a simple form. It is the summary of the whole gospel, reflecting the heart of Christianity that shows us who God is and how we, as God’s children, should respond. 

 It also teaches us what to desire and in what order, showing us how our priorities should be with respect to what we have to ask God our Father. In other words, it orders our desires. It also trains us to pray as God’s children, and not just as isolated individuals. Thus, it is considered as the prayer of the whole Church. 

 This prayer is also considered as the model prayer because it is ordered toward God’s glory and God’s will. It includes the duty to ask for forgiveness for our sins as well as to extend mercy to those who may have done us wrong. 

 More than that, this prayer asks for deliverance from the real spiritual dangers we face in this life. In this prayer, we ask for protection even as we are encouraged to be vigilant and confident of God’s ever-ready help. 

 But more importantly, Christ tells us that our prayer should be trustful, God-centered and morally transformative, and not just performative or merely wordy. He warns us against “heaping up empty phrases” and “vain repetitions,” since prayer is not persuasion-by-volume, but rather is humble asking. 

 We have to understand that to pray properly means that God already knows our needs. It is not about informing God about what we need. It is rather turning our heart to him, showing how our relationship with him should be one of dependence on a Father who already knows our needs and cares for us. 

 Our prayer should have as an effect a certain conversion of heart and not just some vague feeling of being spiritual. It should lead us to acknowledge our sinfulness and our sins and should lead us to desire for reconciliation and change of ways. 

 We should therefore realize how important it is for us to know how to pray properly, since it is our way of uniting ourselves with God, our Creator and Father, with whom we are supposed to be always, since our life, as an image and likeness of God, is meant to be a shared life with God. 

 Praying is to our spiritual life what breathing and the beating of the heart are to our biological life. That is why St. Paul clearly said, “Pray without ceasing, give thanks in all circumstances; for this is the will of God in Christ Jesus for you.” (1 Thes 5,17-18) 

 When we manage to truly pray, we can also manage to protect ourselves from all kinds of evil, and to heal whatever wounds and weaknesses we may have because of our sins. A sense of holy invulnerability can come to us.