In our readings today we hear of those who displayed great faith in the Lord. Abraham was willing to put his lineage and the life of his only son in the hands of God. Simeon trusted in the Lord to keep His promise that he would see the salvation of Israel. Anna was so dedicated to God that she never left the temple, night or day, because she knew whom she was serving and how worthy of her faith He was.
So why do we sometimes find it so hard to exhibit faith? Not even faith on the scale that we read about in our readings, but simple trust in the Lord to take care of us so that we do not feel it necessary to worry? I have a theory. I believe we have become so attached to and used to the temporal and physical that we have left no room for the spiritual or intangible. We have left no room for the power of God that can manifest in both our spiritual and physical needs. We look to Google for our answers, and to Amazon for our satisfaction and material needs. Do we even seek the Lord anymore as our first choice of help when there is something that is bothering us or something that we need? We seem to instead place our faith in search engines and shopping sites. Can you imagine how this makes our Lord feel to have been placed second to piles of semiconductors and wires?
Yet we have the audacity to question why we are as a society so dissatisfied, disjointed, and anxious. Is it any wonder? We have left the greatest power in the universe for idols that we have created in our techno-centric arrogance, and that we now place so much of our focus on. We have created this, and been so proud of our advances, but we still seem surprised by how often the people of ancient times fell under the influence of idols. If we really stop and think, how much difference is there between our iPad and a golden calf? Both were designed for essentially the same purpose – to distract us from the only one who can actually save us. The only real difference is the method in which they do it. Now don’t get me wrong, if used properly, technology can be a benefit, but when we let it take over too much of our lives, we are running into an age-old problem that we should always be vigilant against – how much time we spend on things other than our focus on God. God is what we need to be searching for, not on the screen but in our souls. This is what we need to place our trust in for all our needs first and foremost. If we should have learned anything from this pandemic, it is how little control we actually have over things; think about how powerless we actually are in the grand scheme and take the appropriate step – kneel and pray. We cannot make it through this life to where we want to be in eternal life without this change of mindset. We have just celebrated our Lord’s birth here among us, a birth into humble human form that is so great a gift, as it was done solely to allow us to understand Him better and to give us reason to hope and believe. The only requirement that our Lord made so clear was to have faith. This is the challenge; this is why we are here in this life. We are only around for a very finite period of time – let’s not waste the opportunity to find our way to God.
Podcast Link
The Deacons Bench 