If we only believe in God

By Fr. Roy Cimagala

YES, indeed! If we only believe in God, we would be assured of our salvation, of the fullness of our dignity as persons and children of God. Yes, we would be saints, sharers in the very life and nature of God himself, as we are meant to be, since that is what God wants us to be.

We are reminded of this wonderful truth of our Christian faith in that gospel episode where Christ talked about the promise of eternal life for us as long as we believe in him as sent by God to give us “the way, the truth and the life.” In fact, he gives his own self as the Bread of Life. (cfr. Jn 6,44-51)

Whatever difficulty, problem, challenge we can have to pursue this ultimate goal of ours in our earthy journey can always be taken care of as long as we believe in God and correspond to the consequences of such belief.

It’s really up to us if we want to achieve our ultimate perfection. Insofar as God is concerned, he already has given us everything so we can be as he wants us to be—his image and likeness, his children.

We need to humble ourselves to enable us to believe in God even if what is promised us appears to be impossible, given the way we are, always hounded with all kinds of weaknesses, temptations and sins.

Let’s repeat those words spoken by a father importuning Christ to cure his dying child: “Lord, I believe; help my unbelief!” (Mk 9,24) Let’s remember that while we always have to try our best to understand God’s will for us, making full use, in fact, of our God-given human powers, we actually are not expected to understand everything.

Given the spiritual and supernatural nature of God’s will and ways, we can only say that we will try our best to obey and follow God’s will and ways. We cannot deny that even if God has given us everything that we need to know, love and do God’s will and ways, the fact is that we often fail to make good use of all these means. Besides, we are always prone to go our own ways, rather than God’s ways.

We therefore have to familiarize ourselves with the dynamics of faith where a certain ‘leap in the dark’ would always be involved. As long as we have faith, even if we commit mistakes, things would just turn out right. God’s providence is so powerful and merciful that it can derive good from evil. There’s no need to over-think and over-react when things don’t come out as we expect.

St. Paul already assured us that if we do things in good faith, that is, when we do them with God and for God, everything, including our mistakes, will work out for the good. (cfr. Rom 8,28) What is important is that we should always do things with God and for God.

In this regard, it is important that we study well the doctrine of our faith, enliven our life of piety, make many acts of faith during the day, have recourse to the sacraments, etc., so that we do everything with God and for God.

It also helps that we develop a certain healthy fear of God which is that holy fear of committing sin, of going against the will of God. That would assure us, especially when the unavoidable temptations come, that we would stick with God rather than with our own will alone.

Email: roycimagala@gmail.com