The storms in our life

THAT gospel episode where the apostles found themselves in a storm in the middle of the lake (cfr. Mt 8,23-27) teaches us a great lesson about absolute trust in God’s providence amid the twists and turns, the ups and downs in our life here on earth. 

 We cannot avoid storms and other forms of negative happenings in our life. But before this fact of life, what we have to do is to try our best to remain calm and just go to God to ask for help. He’s always around. He may appear asleep and oblivious of our predicaments, but he actually knows everything that happens in our life and is there to help us. 

 To be sure, the storms and the negative things in our life were not part of the original plan of God for us. They only came out as a consequence of sin, that of our first parents as well as those of ours which are still a continuing affair for us. God allows these things to happen to respect our freedom which we often misuse and abuse. But he also knows what to do with them. 

 On our part, whatever storms we encounter in life, whether material, temporal, or spiritual and moral, our attitude and reaction should be that we can precisely use these storms to approach our Lord, begging for help. It would be wrong and would make things worse if we choose to run away from him. God is all there to help. 

 No matter how guilty we may be with respect to the predicaments that befall us, God is not scandalized by any wrongdoing we do. He may be angry for a while, but his mercy will always prevail. And his anger and the punishment that may go with it are always meant for our own good. 

 And when problems and difficulties beyond our control take place, we should just trust God’s providence and be ready for wherever divine providence would take us. We have to be open to it all the time, developing a faith-guided adventurous outlook. 

 Even as we make our plans and pursue them truly as our own, we should not forget that nothing in our life is actually outside the providence of God who can adapt himself to us, even in our worst situations and predicaments, and can still lead us to himself. 

 The only thing to remember is that God is always around and is actually intervening and directing our life to him. That is part of his omnipotence which he exercises both from all eternity and in time since our creation and all the way to the end of time. 

 There will be things in our life that will be beyond our human notice, and much less, our human control. We have to trust God’s providence even if things look terrible, impossible, or inhuman when judged simply by human standards. 

 Let’s again remember that episode of the apostles in a boat that was about to sink because of the big waves. (cfr. Mt 8,23-27) Christ reproached them for their lack of faith. And in that parable of the wheat and the weeds, (cfr. Mt 13,24-30) Christ was clearly telling them and us that we should just go on doing a lot of good even if we are disturbed by many evils, because in the end Christ would make the proper judgment. 

 He assures us that with him we will never work in vain and everything would just work out for the good. (cfr. Is 65,23; Rom 8,28)

Always nourish the faith

WE are familiar with the story of the doubting Thomas who later on turned to be a fervently believing Thomas. (cfr. Jn 20,24-29) It’s a story that can only remind us of our duty to always nourish our faith to such an extent that Christ’s words to Thomas can also be applied to us: “Blessed are those who have not seen and have believed.” 

 We have to be wary of the danger of starving our faith by neglecting its abiding need for nourishment. Especially nowadays when we are bombarded with so many distracting elements that would lead us to ignore this responsibility, we need to make some special effort to truly nourish our faith by availing of the relevant means of ongoing formation. 

 We need to convince ourselves that giving priority to this need is all worthwhile. It does not at all undermine our other needs in life. In fact, giving priority to the nourishment of our faith would make sure that the attention we give to our other needs would be most proper and would be put on the right track. 

 For this we always are in need of constantly studying our faith, progressively translating what we learn from such study into appropriate attitudes, virtues, words and deeds to such an extent that whatever we do in life is always guided and inspired by our faith and not just by some sheer human wisdom and cleverness. 

 While faith is first of all a gift, and of the spiritual and supernatural kind that is given to us gratuitously, we have to realize that we also need to correspond to it. We just cannot and should not be casual about this duty to correspond properly to it. It’s a serious duty that once neglected can lead to disastrous consequences. 

 Especially to those who regard themselves quite gifted intellectually and in other aspects of human life, there is a need to be so humble as to always feel the need to be guided by faith first and always rather than simply by their human powers and other resources. 

 We have to follow the example of Our Lady whose faith was highly extolled once by her cousin Elizabeth who told her: “Blessed is she who believed that there would be a fulfillment of what was spoken to her from the Lord.” (Lk 1,45) 

 That’s because when she was told by the Archangel Gabriel that she was going to be the mother of the Son of God, she first asked how it could happen since she knew not man. But when the heavenly messenger told her that the Holy Spirit would overshadow her and that she would conceive a son in her womb, she immediately said, “Be it done to me,” even if what she was told cannot be explained humanly. 

 We have to understand that with respect to our faith, we are not expected to understand everything. We, of course, should try to understand the truths of our faith, but we should always realize that with faith, we can be dealing with supernatural truths and mysteries that are beyond our human capacity to understand. 

 We should just say, yes, to it not because we understand it, but rather because of the one who told it us, the one who cannot lie. Faith always involves trust, just like in our ordinary daily affairs when we would just do things without asking so much why we need to do them. We simply do them because we trust in the ones who ask us to do them.

What to be Christ-like involves

OUR Christian faith teaches us that since we are God’s image and likeness, we should see to it that our life here on earth is meant for us to correspond to that divine will. We should bear this in mind so that we avoid getting distracted and lost as to what really is the ultimate purpose of our life here on earth. 

 And since Christ is the Son of God who became man, he is the perfect image God has of his own self. Because of that, we can say that Christ is also the pattern of our humanity and the savior of our humanity that has been damaged by sin, since we God’s image and likeness. That is why Christ once said that he is “the way, the truth and the life” for us. (Jn 14,6) 

 In other words, we have to understand that our life here on earth is meant for us to pursue our becoming like Christ, or “another Christ” as some theologians have said. Everything in our life should be referred to, oriented to or understood as an occasion, means or reason to be Christ-like. 

 Insofar as Christ is concerned, he has given us everything such that whatever situation we can find ourselves in this life, both the good ones and the bad ones, he has given us a way of how to handle it so we can become like him. 

 And what does to be like Christ involve? He himself told us about this. “Whoever loves father or mother more than me is not worthy of me, and whoever loves son or daughter more than me is not worthy of me; and whoever does not take up his cross and follow after me is not worthy of me. Whoever finds his life will lose it, and whoever loses his life for my sake will find it,” he said. (Mt 10,37-39) 

 Tough requirements, indeed! But if we would just keep and strengthen our faith, we know that we actually have been given everything so that what God wants us to be can be attained by us. It is always a test of faith if we really want to be what God wants us to be! 

 We may not be able to achieve this ideal perfectly by relying on our efforts alone, but as long as we do our best to follow what Christ tells us, then that ideal can be achieved ultimately with God’s grace. It’s always God who would complete and perfect everything, just as St. Paul once said: “He, who has begun a good work in you, will perfect it unto the day of Christ Jesus.” (Phil 1,6) 

 But on our part, we should do everything to correspond to what Christ is forming us to be. We need to learn how to be increasingly detached from the things of the world and even from our own selves insofar as they would constitute as an obstacle in making us increasingly identified with Christ. 

 We know all too well how unduly attached we can be to the things of the world, and especially to our own personal things and relations. We need to develop the proper discipline so that we can have the proper attitude toward these things of the world and our own personal things and relations, making them helpful rather than a hindrance in our pursuit to be Christ-like.