Dear Lord, I don't want to be like the scribes, who never seemed to understand or hear you. I want You to get through to me. I want to be like those people in the crowd who were awed and humbled, and reverently giving praise to God. Better yet, let me be like the paralytic: forgiven of my sins, and able to get up and walk in Your grace, obeying Your command. Amen.
Reflection
What do you love most in the world? Is it your spouse, your children, your grandchildren, your friends, your cell phone? What if God asked you to give it up? Abraham, our father in faith, was told by God to offer his most beloved son, Isaac, as a burnt offering. Abraham didn’t question God, he didn’t hold back – he trusted in the Lord. (Genesis 22:1b-19) What kind of trust and faith that must have been! And while God may not be asking us to sacrifice one of our loved ones, we are called to show the same unbreakable trust that Abraham had for our loving Father.
Sin cripples us in a way that any physical ailment would. It breaks us down and holds us back; it hurts us and it prevents us from walking with Christ. We are blind when we avoid seeing those who are suffering around us. We are deaf when we hear other people’s cries for help and do nothing for them, and we are also deaf when we fail to hear God when he speaks to us. We can have a broken backbone when we are too scared to stand up for what is right. We can be paralyzed when our sins overtake our lives and make us incapable of acting justly. These physical (and spiritual) ailments limit us and weaken us. But Christ shows us time and time again through the many miracles he performed that he can heal our ailments. When Jesus came to the paralytic lying on the stretcher he said to him, “Courage, child, your sins are forgiven,” and then later, “Rise, pick up your stretcher, and go home.” And the paralytic man rose and went home. (Matthew 9:1-8) We too can be healed of our ‘physical ailments’ by confessing our sins to the Lord. Christ’s infinite and loving mercy will heal us from the sins that trap us like a physical ailment. At times in our lives God is going to call us to do things that are emotionally difficult, but we need to know that God has a perfect plan for us, and that he will never harm us if we put our faith in him. We are called to have the faith and trust that Abraham had in the Lord. We are called to question: 'do I put my faith in the Lord when difficult situations arise? Do I trust that God would never harm me? And do I have confidence that if God called me to do anything, I would give up everything to answer him?'
No comments:
Post a Comment