Food for Thought--II

Come to Me all you who are burdened and I will give you rest.
On Me lean. I am your Savior and your God. There is  no          other.
Rely on Me to meet all of your needs, to comfort you in your          sorrow, to heal your  wounds and make you whole.
Only in God will your soul be secure, safe, and strong and              thus able to withstand the storms of life.
Never lose sight of Me as Creator, Redeemer and Sanctifier,            the one in whom fullness of life resides.
Always turn way from sin; repent and believe in the Gospel            and you shall be saved.
Very often you have erected idols from which you hoped you'd      find peace and to no avail.
I alone am God. I am the Light of the world, the Truth that gives  life, and the Living Water that rises up into eternal life.
Rend your hearts, not your garments.
Until you turn to Me with your whole heart, your whole mind,        and your whole soul you shall be anxious and afraid!
Saving you is what I am about in all the events of your life. Trust    Me and you will live secure in My love!

God Does Not Grow Weary in Responding to Our Needs

In today’s first reading, Isaiah 40: 25-31, Isaiah reminds us that God “does not faint nor grow weary, and his knowledge is beyond scrutiny.”  How often, I wonder, do I not reduce God to my level of weariness and my limited knowledge? If I did not, consciously or unconsciously, do this, then why am I hesitant to follow God’s lead, to rest, to take my burdens to Him, or to realize that God knows me through and through, that God knows the heart and the mind of every human being?  Every detail of a human endeavor is known to God before anyone initiates or implements that plan. Why, Isaiah asks, do we say “My way is hidden from the Lord, and my right is disregarded by my God”?  If I took the time to disclose my plans to the Lord, He would give me the enlightenment that I need to move forward with the plan or to discard it because it is against God’s will and violates the rights of others.

Jesus says in today’s Gospel, Matthew 11: 28-30: “Come to me, all you who labor and are burdened, and I will give you rest.” But, no, I keep on frantically being involved. I do not give myself the gift of letting go and sitting with the Lord in total stillness, letting the Lord give me the peace which the world cannot give. Only then will I do what is right and experience God’s abundant blessings.

 Often during His lifetime, burdened by the demands of His life, Jesus stopped and withdrew into the mountains to be with His Father in prayer. We, too, need to do that. Our desire for peace, our hope in the Lord, needs to be expressed by stopping from time to time to visit the Lord in quiet. We will then know the truth of Isaiah’s teaching: “They that hope in the Lord will renew their strength, they will soar as with eagles’ wings; they will run and not grow weary, walk and not grow faint.”

The importance of faith

In today’s first reading, Hebrews 4: 1-5, 11, St. Paul tells us that “the word that…[the people] heard did not profit them, for they were not united in faith with those who listened.”  When we listen to someone but have no faith in them or in what they are saying, we do not hear, we do not enter into the rest or experience the peace necessary to recognize God’s presence or receive God’s message.  For instance,  how often do we recognize God in the sunset/sunrises, in the changing of the seasons, in  the wonders of the universe, in the creation of a child, or in any event, those deemed  good or those deemed “bad” of our lives. Paul reminds us that God’s “works were accomplished at the foundation of the world.” Following the creation of all that is, humans and beasts alike, plants and all living things, God declared that “It was good, very good.”  “[O]n the seventh day” God rested “from all of his works.”  Peacefully God continues to sustain all of His creation and intervenes in the lives of billions and billions of people, inviting all to continuously turn to Him, to rest in Him, to know His loving care.  When we “rest” in God in this way, we are at peace no matter what challenges or difficulties, what evil or setbacks  we encounter in life. My mother, who died at age 50 of cancer, would always say: “What would we do without faith.”   Without faith we actually deprive ourselves of the rest that only God can give. So I ask the Lord to increase my faith and yours!