In today's first reading, Colossians 1: 1-8, St. Paul identifies himself as "an Apostle of Christ Jesus by the will of God." By whose will are you who you are? Did you consult God before choosing the career that you have chosen or before choosing your spouse or before making any decision, for that matter? Or do you act independently of God, as though you were your own being apart from God? Something to think about!
Jesus tells us in John 5: 19-20, that He does nothing apart from His Father and that He was sent by the Father; that is, that He did not come of His own will but the Father's (cf. John 6: 57). Neither you nor I, whether we realize it or not, are capable of doing good apart from God. And, yes, we also have been sent into the world by the will of our God. Perhaps one of the missions we have been given is to realize this truth and to act out of that truth: we are God's and it is God's will that we progress in becoming the person He intends us to become and to give the kinds of service He wants us to give.
We also dependent upon God for being freed of that which deprives us of being the person God intends us to be, as with Peter's mother-in-law who was in bed with a fever (see today's Gospel, Luke 4 38-44). Through members of her family, Jesus intervened, rebuking the fever and it left her. She got up and ministered to her family. We have been sent here to serve others, as did Jesus, and to build up the Kingdom of our Beloved, of our God and King!
My prayer is that whatever "fever" holds us back from doing the will of God in our lives will be rebuked by Jesus, as was the fever that took hold of Peter's mother-in-law. And may the "fever" that cripples our government officials from doing good for others be rebuked by Jesus, also!
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