We need to persevere in faith

By Fr. Roy Cimagala

NO matter what happens in our life, we should never lose our faith in God. We know that our life’s drama can get heavy, even to the point of being unbearable, but we should never forget that God is always around and his providence is ever active and unbeatable. We should not allow ourselves to let fear and worries to dominate us.

We are reminded of this point in that gospel episode where Christ told his disciples about someone who had a friend with some urgent need, who came to him in the middle of the night asking for bread. (cfr. Lk 11,5-13)

At first, the friend was refused since everyone in the house was already fast asleep. But then, the friend insisted so much that the one inside the house just had to give in to the request.

From this, Christ imparted the following lesson to his disciples: “Ask, and it shall be given you: seek, and you shall find: knock, and it shall be opened to you. For every one that asketh, receiveth; and he that seeketh, findeth; and to him that knocketh, it shall be opened. And which of you, if he asks his father bread, will he give him a stone? or a fish, will he for a fish give him a serpent?”

When we find ourselves in some dire straits, we should remember this precious lesson Christ taught his disciples. Things may not come as we want them to be, but we should keep in our heart of hearts the belief that God always has something better for us. With him, everything will work out for the good. (cfr. Rom 8,28)

When we persevere in our faith, we know that God always takes care of us. There is never any time when he is indifferent to us. And we have to remind ourselves also that even in our worst condition when we find ourselves at odds with God himself, he will do everything to bring us back to him.

And so, we just have to learn, through our persevering faith, how to live always under the providence of God. We need to remind ourselves strongly about this fundamental truth about ourselves. That’s because we are practically forgetting it and are increasingly suffering the dire consequences.

We have to live under God’s providence, understanding first of all what providence is. Many of us are ignorant of this basic truth, even if in the many fields of human endeavor, we have reached the highest limits.

As our Catechism puts it, providence are “the dispositions by which God guides his creation toward their perfection…By his providence God protects and governs all things which he has made…” (n. 302)

Furthermore, the Catechism says that “the solicitude of divine providence is concrete and immediate; God cares for all, from the least things to the great events of the world and its history.” (n. 303)

We have to realize then that God is constantly intervening in our lives, a reality that we should always acknowledge and correspond to properly. That is why, we need to cultivate our spiritual life, our relation with God which is otherwise called as our religion, that has to be constantly nourished through a life of piety that should be kept as vibrant as possible.

That is why the Catechism tells us that “Jesus asks for childlike abandonment to the providence of our heavenly Father who takes care of his children’s smallest needs.” (n. 305). We should not dare to live solely on our own, something that we need effort to uphold, since our tendency is to think that we can simply be on our own.

Email: roycimagala@gmail.com