In today’s first reading,
Jeremiah 13: 1-11, the Lord tells us through the prophet that, “as close as the
loincloth clings to a man’s loins, so had I made the whole house of Israel and
the whole house of Judah [that includes you and me and all humankind] cling to
me,…; to be my people, my renown, my praise, my beauty. But they did not
listen.” Abandoning God, neglecting our faith and not taking time to develop
intimacy with the Lord, our faith deteriorates, as did the loin cloth that God
directed Jeremiah to hide in a cleft of the rock and leave it there for an
extended period of time. It rotted!
Faith, staying close to
the Lord, growing in intimacy, withers when we fail to nurture it. And what a
failure. When we stop listening to and
sharing everything about ourselves with our God, we also fail in our growth as God’s people, God’s renown, God’s praise, God’s
beauty. How do we nurture our
relationship with God? The same way we develop close relationships with one
another: by spending time with the one/s we love, by communicating honestly with
them, by being loyal to them, by developing a trusting and loving relationship
with them, saying sorry when we are wrong, listening, giving and receiving,
being generous of our time, talent and energy, serving the other for his/her
own sake.
God is always faithful to us! Am I faithful to God? Has my relationship with God grown since first receiving the faith or has it stagnated, faded, or, even rotted?
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