St Paul wrote in today’s readings:
There is no need to worry; but if there is anything you need, pray for it, asking God for it with prayer and thanksgiving, and that peace of God, which is so much greater than we can understand, will guard your hearts and your thoughts, in Christ Jesus.
In these last few days I have been wondering about
this “peace” business, especially in the light of the many things that surround
us, the many things that ”need to be done”. Again and again I hear that “spiritually”
we need to be at peace with God and with one another, but when it comes to the “putting
into practice” side of things it does not always work. In fact often we get very agitated in
conversations about how to do things, what is best, who has the most appropriate
proposal to proceed. Often, in that process we lose our peace, I suspect,
because we lose the relationship of mutual love with one another! We get caught
up in our thinking and ways of doing things without intention! It’s part of our
human condition! It is then that one dominates over the other, that I am more
right than the other, that nobody really understands me fully, that I have
rights too, etc. All familiar arguments which all point to me. But if I AM, God
cannot be in me!
Yesterday, before going to bed, being absolutely
tired out, physically almost incapable to keep my eye open I had the most
amazing Skype call, a profound exchange, which left us both in great peace. Giving
everything out of love in that present moment I realised more than ever that in
order to be at peace I need to love, first of all I need to love Jesus on the
Cross more than ever! He is my everything, because through him can I live.
There is no life outside of him!
So, when I want to revise a document or put a plan
into action, first of all do it with him! Why do it in a hurry as if the world
depends on it? God’s time scales are so different than mine. Do I not often
want to do things quickly, again for the best of reasons, but thereby lose the
other person and am no longer at peace? Our spirituality is a great gift for
today, when everything demands an answer immediately and leads to lot of
struggle. If I believe that I am like everybody else God’s instrument of love I
can be at peace because creation is his work even now. Besides, on my own I am
nothing and I can do nothing. It is with his presence amongst us, that I am
capable of great things, because giving all of myself, being nothing out of
love for Jesus on the Cross and in the other in that present moment; I am free
for God to live amongst us! What greater opportunity to bring to life what he
wants! If there is anything we need, we just need to ask! He does answer!
Look outside of you and not within you, not at the things around you, not at the other to possess, but look to God outside of yourself to be united with him.
Today I want to dedicate to look at God outside of
me in the practical things discovering his time frame not mine and thus being
at peace.
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