Tuesday, December 2, 2014

First Tuesday of Advent: Living as a child of God

"I give you praise, Father, Lord of heaven and earth, for although you have hidden these things from the wise and learned you have revealed them to the childlike." - Lk. 10:21


How often is it that when we try to understand something intellectually that we lose the joy of the experience itself? For example, consider a person hiking at Yosemite. He may concern himself with the temperature, the distance of the hike, and the types of flora or fauna he may encounter. Perhaps if he shifted his disposition to feel the warm rays and cool breeze caressing his skin, to enjoy the playful rolling and winding path along his walk, and to soak in the wonderful variety of God's creation, it is then that a glimpse of God's kingdom is revealed to him.


I often catch myself living life with my head instead of my heart, analyzing if I should do this or consider that instead. Should I talk to that person I do not know very well or preserve my comfort? In almost every instance where I over-think something instead of living with the carefree assurance of a child, a pang of regret hits me afterwards because an opportunity to bask in who or what God has put before me was squandered. On the blessed occasion when I am playful, indeed I experience a manifestation of God's kingdom in the experience. It is not that God deliberately hides His joy from us for it pleases Him to shower us with all that He has, but it is that sometimes in our own self-preoccupation and our tendency to want to control things that we blind ourselves from His kingdom.

Lord, grant me the grace to live confidently with childlike abandon in your love and help me to see the inner child in all I encounter that I may love them as You love all Your children.

Reflected by Michael Jamnongjit


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