What does it mean to trust God? Is it only about persevering in prayer, in our traditions and at Mass? Do fear, despair and suffering sometimes choke us?
Suffering is normal. What is not normal is to sink into despair and fix our eyes on our suffering. Sometimes we are in such a hurry to get an answer or to finish a project. We keep rushing towards new goals and new deadlines, and even though we do it for God, we don’t do it with God. We make decisions without waiting for His answer. Then, when we start to lose – people around us, our job, our career, whatever it may be – we collapse and cry out to God: “Why are You putting me through this?”
I have learned to ask instead: “What does God want to tell me in this situation?” And He would answer: “You of little faith, why did you doubt?” (Matthew 14:31).
Haven’t we asked for God’s presence in our lives? Haven’t we prayed, “Make my heart like Yours”? Haven’t we asked God, “Your will be done, on earth as in heaven”? So why are we surprised to see our relationships, our character, our tastes, our friends, our possessions – everything we had before our conversion – crumble before the eternal Word of God? Truly I tell you, the Bible says: “If anyone is in Christ, there is a new creation: everything old has passed away; see, everything has become new!” (2 Corinthians 5:17). How can we expect to hold on to the old in our lives when God is renewing our very foundations, our soul?
Let go! Surrender to the grace God is giving you. Don’t be afraid of what you might lose… nothing that is in God’s hands can be lost. Even a friend who may be ten feet under the ground right now, God will raise up by giving him Life with a capital L, for “what is impossible for mortals is possible for God.”
God always keeps His promises: “Because you have kept my word of patient endurance, I will keep you from the hour of trial that is coming on the whole world to test the inhabitants of the earth” (Revelation 3:10). We will never be abandoned if we give ourselves completely to God: “His mercy is for those who fear him from generation to generation” (Luke 1:50).
The Bible tells us that times of suffering will come and will be worse than ever: “But be alert; I have already told you everything” (Mark 13:23). They will last for a time. Don’t rush things according to your own timing. Let’s not make decisions just because we haven’t yet received an answer from God. We want everything to end quickly and to be settled right away, but what are 50 days to God? Or one year? Or even five years? He did not hesitate to make the people of Israel wait forty years in the desert, because they were not ready. We are in a process. God is shaping us; He is building our foundations.
Let’s not forget that suffering reflects the glory of God. After each destruction, God gives graces seven times greater to those who have remained faithful to Him. Even Jesus at Golgotha, though He was fully God, cried out in His humanity: “My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?” But what did God do after that cry of despair? He allowed Jesus to redeem the world. And He renews this same sacrifice every day at Mass. Is there any greater miracle?
We too go through dark nights of the spirit, as Saint John of the Cross described. Let us give God room to work miracles through us. Jesus did not work this miracle because He was God; He worked it because He was man, a man who perfectly fulfilled the will of God. Let’s not think for a single second that God will not reward His faithful, those who live in the truth. Our suffering is nothing compared with what God has in store for us. It is NOTHING. Let’s save our energy for what is to come, because we will have to travel the world to help souls find the way again.
We end every prayer with “Amen”… but do we know what this word means?
“Amen” is often translated as “so be it”, but it also means “truly”. When we say Amen, we are declaring our faith and making an affirmation. It is a response that shows we agree with what has been said.
So I invite all of us to pray again, but this time ending with an affirmation, a blind trust and a declaration of the truth: “Your will be done”… Our Father…
By Tracy Karam
