Commit your ways to the Lord

Today’s responsorial psalm begins with the following invitation: “Commit your ways to the Lord, trust in God and God will act; God will make justice dawn upon you like light and bright as the noonday shall be your vindication.”  No one goes through life without being wronged in some way and knowing that our best defense is to wait upon the Lord to vindicate us.  Waiting to be exonerated is very difficult.  Without realizing it, the “demons” in our unconscious sneak into our minds. We may put ourselves down, stop believing in ourselves, withdraw from the confidence we need to continue to allow the Lord to use the intelligence, the goodness, the skills, the giftedness He has given us.  Though it is true, as said in today’s Gospel, that what comes out of us can be evil. It is also true that we can block the good from coming out of us as well. Others do not get inside of our heads and do that. We do that to ourselves. We can block God from using our creative energies, our creative intelligence, our giftedness in service of the Gospels. We can fail to “commit our ways to the Lord.”  We can stop believing that God will vindicate us from whatever we need to be vindicated that obstructs God’s power from working through us. Many times what prevents us  is our own harsh criticisms that what we do is not good enough, that we are not worthy of God, that we do not have the capabilities to make a difference. So we say or do nothing at all.  We need God to vindicate us over and over again especially from our own unjust critiques of ourselves. Only then will we allow God to work through our giftedness, our intelligence, our talents  to build His Kingdom here on earth. Only then will be commit to the good we are called to do by partnering with God. May each of us know this truth in his/her life this day!