God is not an outsider in our life

By Fr. Roy Cimagala

“MY heart exults in the Lord, my Savior.” That’s one of the responsorial psalms in the Mass just days before Christmas. It’s actually from the First Book of Samuel (2,1) which was the prayer of the mother of Samuel, Hannah, expressing her great joy and sense of victory for reversing her bad fortunes. It’s the same expression used by Mary in her Magnificat when she said, “My spirit rejoices in God, my Savior.” (Lk 1,47)

It’s an expression that we should try our best to make it our own and to repeat it many times during the day. It would simply remind us that no matter what happens in our life, we are assured of salvation as long as we do our part of corresponding to God’s will and ways.

Nothing in our life, no matter how bad and ugly it is, can thwart that divine assurance. But, yes, we have to do our part, which actually is not difficult since God himself, more than us, will take care of it. We should just go along God’s will and ways as far as we can, even if our correspondence cannot be completely perfect, which is to be expected.

The reason? God is always with and for us. He is always in us. He likes to be with us. He loves us irrespective of how we are to him. He may get angry at us at times, but we are also told that his anger would just be for a moment. It’s his mercy that will always prevail. (cfr. Ps 30,5)

This is because God is never an outsider in our life. He wants us to be his very image and likeness, sharers of his life and nature. He is not just a guide or a boss who directs us in all the events, conditions and situations in our life. Of course, in our relation with him, we consider him first as a guide, a boss, a father. But in the end, what happens is that we are supposed to be one with him.

This was explicitly expressed by Christ himself when in his priestly prayer before his passion and death, he prayed to the Father that we be one in him as he is one with the Father (“ut unum sint”), and that we all be made perfectly one in him (“consummati in unum”) (cfr. Jn 17,22-23)

We need to process this truth of our Christian faith slowly but constantly because it definitely would shock us and leave us totally incredulous. Indeed, we need to beg for God’s grace for us to believe it and, more importantly, to act on it. It’s indeed no joke to go through what is needed to make this truth sink in our mind and heart.

But once, we form the conviction on this truth of our faith, it would truly give us an invincible confidence that whatever happens in life, we would just be ok. More than that, we would do our best to do what is truly good not only for ourselves but also for everybody else.

We would always be aware that God lives in me, that it is God more than us who would be doing things of pure love and goodness with us. Somehow, we can repeat those words of St. Paul, “It is no longer I who live, but Christ lives in me; and the life which I now live in the flesh I live by faith in the Son of God, who loved me and gave Himself up for me.” (Gal 2,20)

Email: roycimagala@gmail.com