When in great difficulty

WHEN we find ourselves in some extraordinary difficulty, we should not hesitate to go to Christ. Let’s beg him for help, but making sure that what should move us to do so is not so much to be rid of the difficulty as to be believe in him as our savior, as our God in whose image and likeness we have been created. In the end, we go to him to be like him, and not just for some self-interest or for some practical purposes.

We are reminded of this truth of our faith in that gospel episode where an official approached Christ begging him to raise the official’s just-recently dead daughter to life again. And when Christ was on his way to the official’s house, a woman suffering from hemorrhage for 12 years, exerted great effort to get near him if only to touch his cloak, convinced that by so doing she would be cured. (cfr. Mt 9,18-26)

In both cases, Christ praised their deep faith in him. We have to remember that it is faith that lets us enter into the spiritual and supernatural world. It brings us to share in God’s wisdom and power. Remember those stirring words of Christ: “If you have faith as a grain of mustard seed, you shall say to this mountain, Remove from there, and it shall remove, and nothing shall be impossible to you.” ((Mt 17,20)

Without faith, in spite of our keenest intelligence, we will miss much of the more important aspects of our life as we would only be restricted to the here and now, the material, practical and the temporal. We would miss the real purpose of our life, which is for us to be like God.

We need to exert effort to have the proper intention whenever we ask some extraordinary favors from God. That’s because very often we are moved to run to God only for some practical motives. We forget that in all our dealings with God, the main and constant reason is to adore him and to express our desire to be like him as he wants us to be.

We should be careful not to let our great difficulties set aside the main reason for asking favors from God. This is actually a big challenge for us, since with our tendency to consider only the here and now, we forget to pursue the real and ultimate purpose of our life.

This, of course, will require a certain discipline on our part. That’s why we need to avail of certain practices of piety that would constantly remind us of the main reason for any petitions we make from God.

This is a big challenge that would require us to be sober and to learn how to be contemplative even while we are in the midst of the ups and downs of our earthly life. We have to broaden our understanding of the character and purpose of our life here on earth, and know the purpose, the causes and the reason for our human predicaments.

We just have to remember what St. Paul once said: “To them that love God, all things work together unto good, to such as, according to his purpose, are called to be saints.” (Rom 8,28) These words of St. Paul should be at the very core of our attitude when we are faced with our difficulties in life.