Thursday of the First Week of Lent (March 5, 2009)
When we began this journey, God knocked at the door of our hearts and we opened it. Today, He is asking us to knock at His door. He is telling us that if we ask Him, He will answer us, if we seek, we will find Him, if we knock, He will open. He is there for us, but we have to take the first step towards Him. We already took the first step. Actually, this is our tenth step, but we may be looking for Him in all the wrong places.
Do you feel sometimes like God does not listen to you? Do you feel like He doesn’t have time for you? Are you constantly praying for a specific thing? You may have been praying for the same thing for years and yet, He still has not answered you.
This morning, I sat with Mary, our blessed Mother, in the bench under the tree. While we were talking, we were surrounded by a multitude of birds and not one, not two, but three squirrels. I began to look at Jesus through Her eyes. I contemplated the Nativity. Can you possibly imagine how Mary most have felt, after God asked Her to be the Mother of His Son, after He entrusted Her with such huge responsibility, and then, She goes into labor, and She cannot even find a decent place to bring this Child into the world? Do you think She felt abandoned? Do you think She felt forgotten? Do you think She had doubts that maybe She made the wrong decision when She answered YES? She had to deliver Her Son, God’s Son, in a manger, and I am sure it was not as pretty as the Nativity scene we place in our homes for Christmas. It smelled awful. It was full of dirty and smelly barn animals (not pretty butterflies or squirrels). The hay where she had to lay was probably very itchy, not like the comfortable beds where most of us delivered our children surrounded by doctors and nurses. Her only companions were the smelly animals and Joseph. Poor Joseph, who was just a simple carpenter, and was probably wondering what in the world He had gotten Himself into. Where was God at that moment? Why didn’t He answer when She knocked at His door? Where was God when She knocked at the door of so many inns and they all turned Her away?
Mary did not question God. She did not doubt Her decision not even for a moment. She placed Her complete trust in God. If He had asked Her, a simple girl from Nazareth to be the Mother of His Son, She knew He would take care of Her and the Baby. We, on the other hand, doubt at every turn of the road. We become impatient when our prayers don’t get answered right away. When things don’t go our way, we get upset and figure that God must be too busy for us. Have you ever stopped to think why God is not answering your prayer? Maybe He has a different plan for you. His plan may be completely different than ours. If we had been in Bethlehem 2000 years ago, we would have wondered, what is the point of bringing His Son into the world in a manger? He is the King of the world, He should be born in a palace, surrounded by servants and the most comfortable luxuries. Now, 2000 years later, we understand His plan. Jesus did not come to be served but to serve. He did not come to live among the rich. He came to live among the poor, the sick, the abandoned, the forgotten, the sinners. He came to serve each and every one of us.
We need to place our full trust in God. If He is not answering as fast as we would like, we need to trust that He has a different plan and He will reveal that plan to us when the time is right. We need patience, because His time is not our time.
No comments:
Post a Comment