Divine assurance of victory

By Fr. Roy Cimagala

THAT was clearly spelled out for us in the Beatitudes as articulated by Christ. (cfr. Lk 6,20-26) As long as we believe and live out what Christ taught, whatever human disaster, disadvantage and inconvenience as viewed according to human and worldly standards can be converted into a source of joy, a means of our redemption, a path to heaven, narrow and difficult though it may be.

The Beatitudes expand our understanding of what would comprise as our true happiness by including those situations which we normally regard as unsavory and therefore to be avoided as much as possible and hated.

The Beatitudes is Christ’s way of telling us not to be afraid of any cross in our life, of whatever evil can come to us. As long as we tackle them together with Christ, these negative things in our life will in fact be a source of joy and peace for us, for it is through them that we would attain our own salvation and that of many others.

We, therefore, have to learn to lose any fear of the cross. That instinct of ours to be afraid and to flee from the cross has to be reversed, and made into an instinct of love for the cross.

This may take time and effort, this may require a lot of thinking and discipline, this may involve some drastic and even painful adjustments in our understanding of things, but it is all worthwhile to do so.

When we lose the fear of the cross and develop the love for it instead, we would have the proper light to guide us in our life here on earth. Not only that, we can have the invincible peace and joy that is proper to us as persons and as children of God.

There’s really no reason to be too worried and anxious when we encounter some difficulty in our life. In fact, we have every reason to be confident and at peace, focused on what we are supposed to do. And that’s because we are always in God’s hands.

Whatever situation we may be in, we can be sure that God will always provide for what is truly needed by us, and it may not be what we want. We just have to trust him completely for he knows better than we do, and what we want may not be what we need. It may not even be what is good for us.

God always knows what to do in any situation we may find ourselves in. He may allow some evil to come to us, an evil that can do us no harm unless we let it, but God knows how to draw good from evil.

Ours is simply to trust God completely, and out of that trust, we should always feel confident and courageous to do what we are supposed to do. We should not waste our time lamenting and feeling like a victim, or wallowing in doubts, passivity and self-pity.

We have to remove ourselves from that state mentioned by St. Paul in his Letter to the Ephesians: “children tossed to and fro and carried about with every wind of doctrine, by the cunning of men, by their craftiness in deceitful wiles.” (4,14) We have to move on. There are a lot of things we need to do.

It’s important that we be confident and at peace always, because that would put us in the proper condition to do the things we are supposed to do. It will make us bold and courageous, fruitful and productive.

Email: roycimagala@gmail.com