Knowledge and Understanding of God's Will

In today's first reading, Colossians 1: 9-14, St. Paul tells the people that he has been praying for them from the day that he first heard about them.  The same is true of Jesus' first meeting of us as His baptized son/daughter. Every day, Jesus intercedes for us asking, as St. Paul did for the Colossians, that you, insert your name), "may be filled with the knowledge of  God's will through all spiritual wisdom and understanding to walk in a manner worthy of the Lord, so as to be fully pleasing, in every good work bearing fruit and growing in the knowledge of God, strengthened with every power, in accord with his glorious might, for all endurance and patience, with joy giving thanks to the Father,. who  has made you fit to share in the inheritance of the holy ones in light."

The only way that we know God's will is through God's gift of "spiritual wisdom and understanding."  With Jesus as our intercessor, nothing will deprive us of the wisdom and understanding of what God is asking of us at any given time in our lives!  So why is it that we do not always do what God asks of us. Our failure is not that God is not doing His part!  God is always there with the wisdom and the understanding we  need to walk in a manner worthy of Him and in a way that we fully please Him in every good work bearing fruit.  The problem may be that we are too busy trying to please others and meet their approval, not God's!

St. Paul prays, as does Jesus, that we be strengthened  "with every power, in accord with [God's]
 glorious might."  However, we might be blind and deaf to the voice of the Holy Spirit because we are obsessively and compulsively seeking the power and glorious might the world promises us through this world's billionaires or popular pseudo gods. No way, then, would we  be interested in  sharing the  "inheritance of the holy ones in light," an inheritance in which we begin to share even here on earth when our choices are in harmony with God's will for us here and now: knowledge of God, spiritual wisdom and understanding, God's glorious might working through us, and a joy and a peace which the world cannot give.

"Meat" or "Manna"

In today’s first reading, Numbers 11: 4-15,  the people are fed up with eating manna day in and day out:  “Would that we had meat for food,” they lament. Moses is fed up with the people, as well. He says to the Lord: “Why do you treat your servant so badly? Why…burden me with this people…tell[ing] me to carry them at my bosom, like a foster father carrying an infant, to the land you promised under oath to their fathers? Where can I get meat to give to all these people? ….If this is the way you deal with me, then please do me the favor of killing me at once, so I no longer need to deal with this distress.”

This morning I was as discombobulated at the Israelites in the desert. I wanted something to be a certain way--I wanted "meat," not "manna" and it couldn’t be that way, for now. Frantically, I tried to make it be the way I wanted it to be. I did not want to wait upon the Lord and let go!  “Why…burden me, Lord”  my frantic actions cried out.

Moses is so frustrated that he begs to have his life ended, as do so many people when they are at the end of the rope, so to speak. “Why, Lord, all this suffering; I can't take it any more," is the lament  that God probably hears all day long. The deserts of our lives are very difficult to handle. At times we wish it were over.  People walk out of their marriages with no effort to address the issues. People abandon  a job without planning for their future. Young people look to other religions  for various reasons.  Kids drop out of college--its too hard, or whatever!

When I am at the place where I think I have no where to turn, the Lord reminds me that my heart will be restless until it rests in Him. Frantically, I might be seeking relief from things, persons or from me—sources that are unable to bring me to refreshing waters.  “Come to me, all you who labor and are overburdened” the Lord says, “and I will give you rest.”  Rest in Me, in the solitude before the Blessed Sacrament, in Adoration, in prayer. Ps. 23 reminds me that “[b]y tranquil streams he leads me to restore my spirit. He guides me in paths of saving justice as befits his name.” When I drift off in “a ravine as dark as death,” (Ps 23:4), or on a path that only leads to more restlessness, the Lord’s “staff and [His] crook are there to soothe me,” (Ps 23: 4) if  I stop my frantic searching and turn to the Lord in quiet, humble, faith-filled longing for the Lord's help.

What about you?

God at work in an imperfect world

In today's first reading--the story of how Jacob stole the blessing that was intended for his brother Esau.  His own mother Rebekah assisted him in deceiving his father.  How often does our salvation history take turns that we do not understand. "How could God allow that to happen?" we ask.  Or we say: "That was not fair. I am not staying in this situation.  It's deceptive. It's scandalous. It is not right." If Jesus had used those exuses, He would have abandoned His Father's plan of salvation. "A Messiah who would ascend the throne of the cross, not a throne of glory here on earth? He might have asked His Father.  "Salvation," by way of ridicule, rejection?"   "A mission that encounters a lack of faith in my own home town?"

Jesus was given authority to transplant the Old Covenant with a New Covenant. God the Father did not promise that on the way to making something New that Jesus would not encounter deception, self-willed individuals who would do it their way or insist that God's way was wrong in their opinion. Jesus understood that justice, mercy, and love would prevail. So, too, in our lives. Justice, love and mercy will triumph. Darkness will be turned into light. Deceptive ways will yield to truth. Hatred will  be overcome by love. "See I make all things new," says the Lord through the prophet Isaiah (Is 43: 1-20).