Friday
of the 4th Week of Lent
April 4, 2014 8:30am
Today’s readings pose a question
for me and maybe for each of us.
Is it too easy to say that we
trust in God when everything is good or at least okay in our lives?
Is our trust in God too easy when
we lack nothing of the essentials in life, when our relationships are going
well, and when we are not involved in any significant struggle?
Obviously, each of us likes
peace, comfort, and sufficiency in our lives.
There is nothing wrong with that
and I am not suggesting that we deliberately try to mess up our lives and make
them difficult.
But in today’s gospel, we see the
struggles of Jesus starting to mount.
Unlike Jesus, we may have no one
who will plot against us.
But, at one point or another, we
will probably all have to deal with sickness, the death of a loved one, the
loss of a job, divorce, old age, and on it can go.
And these realities of our human
condition can really put us to the test.
To be able to trust and have
faith in God in those moments, we need to prepare right now.
We need to tend our relationship
with God right now.
Praying each day, deepening our
relationship with Jesus by reading the gospel each day, bringing our daily
needs to God, and seeking God’s will or message in the small desolations and
disappointments and sufferings of life -- these are ways to prepare ourselves
for more difficult moments.
Our tending and growing in our
relationship with God now will help us in those difficult times.
Our doing this makes our trust
and faith in God not superficial, but strong and deep.
