When all things work according to what we hope for, it is easy to believe that God’s will is the best.  When our prayers are answered, we believe that there is He who heard us, and He who has great plans for us.  But what if the things you hope for did not work according to what you thought it would be?  What would you do if the ultimate dreams you have been praying for the longest time were now gone?  How would you accept that it was not about your will His will?  If all the things around you do not make sense are the reasons are far from your understanding, will you still believe in Him.  Will you still want to pray and hope for your other dreams come true?

It is truly difficult to follow when we struggle – to accept, to obey, to surrender – especially when we are in discomfort and in pain.  In the gospel, we learned that all of us are potential disciples yet very few persevere to believe and to follow the Lord is very difficult path to take.  It entails a constant dying of oneself – a personal commitment to do what He says, not what He want to happen. Oftentimes, we feel lighter when we surrender our hope and prayers to the Lord, but when He tells us what to do, we back off; we think twice, we stop along the way and choose not to talk to Him until we feel ready to respond.  Because human as we are, we claim to know what can make us grow; we set our own reality of what He wants us to be without deepening our knowledge of His words in the Scriptures.

The gospel is a reminder that to sustain our faith, there are unimaginable concepts about His mysteriousness that we have deeply understand and believe in.  Like the disciples, the facts and reality of Christ may shock us too because the faith that we have alone will not be enough to comprehensively process the word of God and the mystery of our Catholic faith.  If the simple lost and unanswered prayer make us all shaken, what more is the reality of our God?  The good thing is, we can always ask for the grace of the Lord to help us sustain our faith despite its deepness.  Just like the twelve disciples, we all are chosen even if He knows that we might not understand nor follow Him or worse betray Him.

Jesus wants us to journey in faith in God through Him.  He does not ask us to be perfect for Him because He knows our weaknesses and sins; what He wants us is to pray not only for our hopes and dreams, but also for the purity of our heart and spirit.  He wants us to pray not only for our hopes and dreams, but also for the purity of our heart and spirit.  He wants us to pray His will be done in this world and in our lives.  He wants us to pray for His grace and guidance to accept that everything here on earth is not ours and we are only one of His creations designed to follow Him.  He wants us to pray for a good relationship not only for our loved ones but with Him most importantly.  He wants us to be humble and be patient to wait for the eternal life He has been wanting to give us.  He wants us to pray for discernment and obedience to God’s words in the scriptures so as to realize and fulfill our purpose in life.  Far from all the things we have been doing and asking are the things God wants us to understand.

We are all in this wonderful journey to strengthen our soul and spirit.  We may all falter along the way, but it is our own choice whether to continue forward or to quit the fight.  Jesus was tested a lot of times before He was able to serve His purpose of dying on the cross to give us the gift of salvation.  We, Christians, are also being tested now – every single day of our lives.  There are already many who returned to their former way of life and no longer accompanied Him.  “Do you also want to leave?”

May our response be like Simon Peter, “Master, to whom shall we go?  You have the words of eternal life.  We have come to believe and are convinced that you are the Holy One of God.”  Amen.

– Olive Ilustrissimo

Source: Neo Jeremiah Voice of the Young Prophet Newsletter – Aug 26, 2018 issue.