Saturday, July 10, 2010

There's a (Good) Reason for Everything...

What a radical Gospel it was that Christ preached!  He told us of His Father, in Heaven, who loved us all even through sin!  He showed to us His Mother, who was to become Our Mother, and who was to have each of us as Her child!  He demonstrated for us the ULTIMATE act of love for us, the most perfect expression of complete self-sacrifice that this world has ever seen!  And yet, too often we lack the trust to understand: He only desires everything GOOD for us!

We struggle with so many different things!  We worry about how we will pay the bills, or get the job, or find the guy, or seize the moment, or even please the Lord!  We get depressed and hopeless about our tendencies to sin, take them as horrible proclivities toward evil that cannot be altered without great difficulty, and become frustrated with our own inability to change.  Sound familiar?  It sounds all too familiar to me!  And yet, He ONLY DESIRES EVERYTHING GOOD FOR US!

What does this mean?  This means that every inclination, every emotion, every EVERYTHING He gives us is meant to draw us closer to Him.  The catch?  When we direct all those gifts towards something OTHER than Christ, other than our God made Flesh.  Then, the gifts become twisted in unrecognizable ways, disturbingly lacking in peace and the joy that Christ has brought us through His Resurrection.

Think about it: take any proclivity toward sin you can think of.  Covetousness.  One is so envious of another's land, or their wealth, or their wife!  Yet, directed toward God, that WANT of something BEAUTIFUL is fulfilled!  God offers us all we desire, AND MORE.  We simply need to orient that GIFT that He has given us of IMMENSE desire for something beautiful, precious, and priceless towards HIM!

Or, take addiction.  Addictive tendencies, directed toward God, give us abounding recourse to Him, all the time!  Take judgment of others.  A thirst for righteousness and justice, directed at self-reflection as Christ calls us to do ("remove the log in your own eye before trying to remove the splinter in your brother's eye!"), is beautiful and humbling in ways that cannot be achieved otherwise for certain personalities.  Take feelings of sadness, or emptiness, or loneliness, or doubt: directed toward God, we find everything we could ever need, and we discover that He was the answer all along to our supposed "problem"; and that that "problem" actually ended up bringing us closer to Him.

We've all heard the story: "In the end, it was a GOOD thing that this tragedy happened: I ended up trusting in God, or learning from Him, or growing in Faith."  Everyone has a story like that, either from themselves, a friend, a family member, or even an acquaintance or friend of a friend.  What would the world be like if we recognized the CHRIST in all our supposed "difficulties"?  Christ died on the Cross so that we could be free of sin - not so that we could nail ourselves with our own self-condemnation, but so that we could recognize that He has taken the world's sins onto His back, has had them driven into His Hands and His Feet, and has saved us from all evil.

God can never bring us anything but Blessings of Goodness, even when those Blessings may appear to be difficult.  Just change the angle at which you are viewing the Gift: you may find it to be stunningly beautiful. :)

May we pray that, for today, we thank Him for everything He gives to us.  May we recognize God's beauty in everything we see, and know the difference between things that are of God and of the evil one.  Grant us a discerning mind, Lord, to be always present in You, and recognize Your Presence in us.  May we, like Our Blessed Virgin Mother, meditate on Your Goodness day and night, and never be parted from Your Love.  May our hearts rejoice in the knowledge of Your Goodness, and thank You and praise You all the days of our lives!  May we always praise You, for You "make all things new" in You!

In the Love of Christ through Mary,
Christina :)