Drawing good from evil

By Fr. Roy Cimagala

THIS no pipe dream at all. St. Paul assured us that “in all things God works for the good of those who love him, who have been called according to his purpose.” (Rom 8,28) It would just be a matter of us seeing to it that our love for God is genuine. And that can only mean that our love for him channels the very same love God has for us.

We should not worry at all if in our life we would encounter all sorts of problems, difficulties, trials and challenges. All these can be converted into something good if we would just go through them with Christ.

We know that on him the worst evil was committed when he, being God made man, was crucified. But that worst evil was converted to the greatest good when our own redemption was achieved precisely through his very passion, death and resurrection.

We should just worry about how we can love God through Christ in the Spirit since that is how we can convert anything evil in our life—be it a sin, a difficulty, etc.—into something that will do us good.

For this to take place, we should try our best to achieve a life of intimacy with God. This should be a constant concern of ours. How can we get more and more intimate with God everyday? This is the most ideal condition that we can and should be in, and we just have to figure out how it can be achieved.

We know through our Christian faith that God loves us no end. Our weakness, our mistakes, our sins, if acknowledged and repented, are no problem in his undying love for us. In fact, they would even provoke God to love us more, to help us more.

We just have to do our part. Perhaps the first thing we have to do is to realize that whatever we are doing, whatever condition we may be in, is always an opportunity to be and to work with God.

This is because God is always present in us. And not only is he present in us in a passive way. He is actually always intervening in our lives. He is the one mainly directing us and things in general with his ever-abiding providence.

We need to be most aware of this reality and live and act in accord to it. We should not be contented only with fulfilling the technical goals and requirements of our daily work and affairs. While that is necessary, we would still miss our ultimate goal unless we refer everything to God.

We should not forget that God meets us in our daily work and affairs which are part of his will for us. The duties and responsibilities that are inherent to our state in life and to our profession, etc., are part of God’s providence over us. It’s there where God actually converses with us.

This truth of our faith should not be ignored. In fact, we have to act on it always. That’s why we need to have the constant desire to dialogue with God in all our work and affairs. We need to know him better and find ways of loving him better each day.

For this purpose, we have to exert the effort of nurturing the presence of God in ourselves, seeking and renewing the human devices that are so helpful for keeping a constant dialogue with him. We have to reach that point where we can truly say we are saying affectionate words to him, praising, glorifying and thanking him for everything.

Email: roycimagala@gmail.com