+ The gospel reading today gives us a marvelous key to
use to unlock, if you will, the magnanimous generosity of God the Father – to
release his power to intervene in our human lives – to make God for us a
reliable source of grace and blessing any time at all that we think we might
need him. But this is the rub – “when we think we need him” to help us with a
“special project” that “we think we need to be involved in.”
Now I am not saying that it is
wrong for us to make plans, start projects and use our God-given creativity and
talents – but what I am saying, and what Jesus is saying in this passage is
that unless our plans, projects and creativity are not in line with the will of
God the Father, in his Master Plan and Master Project of bringing all things
together in Christ, His Son, and the inauguration of the new heavens and the
new earth, then they will be off-kilter, off-center, and off-the-mark!
And we will not be granted,
therefore, what we think we need! And so, if our hearts desire and prayer is
“Thy Kingdom Come, Father, who is in heaven, Thy Will be Done!” then we can ask
what we want, as Jesus tells us to do, and it will be given, because it will be
empowered and accompanied by an outpouring of the Holy Spirit – for without
this, we can literally do nothing at all.
In short, we are never given permission
by God, to ask anything completely “of our own concoction and willing it” even
if it appears to us to be magnanimous and magnificent – and for others. For if
it does not fit into the Master Plan – then it is incongruous, and useless. It
is a waste of time!
And most likely what will
happen in that further down the road, when troubles come up because we had it
our own way, then we will cry out to God for HELP! to get us out of the mess,
that could have been avoided in the first place.
Using the language of the
first reading, God does not want anything about our lives to be burdensome.
Following his rules, his laws, his will manifested for our safety, our
happiness and our fruitfulness in helping others, is meant to be easy, If it is
not, then we need to check our top priority to see if it is “God’s Holy and
Irrevocable Will,” if it isn’t then our day will be filled with miscalculation
and stresses that really don’t need to be there.
And Jesus said: I call you
friends, for I have made know to you all that the Father has told me.
Therefore, let us act today as loving, trusting, joyful friends of the very Son
of God! Amen.
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