It is a little strange being a parent of two little boys. There are so many moments that I look back and remember myself as a child and I start to slip into the same verbiage my parents would use on me. One of those classic parent examples is when we bribe our kids. Please just go to bed and I will give you anything you want tomorrow. Bribing is a last ditch effort after we have exhausted every other possibility and it shows us concretely that we are not perfect.
But then we come to the first reading today. We hear about a God who will give us everything we ask as long as we keep his commandments and do what pleases him. Doesn’t it sound like God is bribing us? As if we are those little children fighting sleep, God is simply asking us to obey His commandments and we will get whatever we want.
If you are anything like me, this verse is a little troubling at first glance. It doesn’t seem like a loving God should be bribing us. Maybe another thought you are having is that you have followed God’s commandments and asked for something and did not receive it in the exact way that you wanted. So we have two “issues” that I want to address today.
Both of these can be addressed with a simple reality. The reality is that we are made by God and our hearts long for Him. If God has created us then it is in living by His laws that we will be most perfectly happy and fulfilled. With this principle in mind, I think it opens up the beauty of this verse and destroys the questions. God asks us to obey his commandments. He doesn’t do this as a bribe, but rather because as a loving father. He knows that if we follow his ways we will be living our lives to the fullest. If we disobey Him we start to lose a part of who we are.
Further, God is not a magic genie. He is not here to grant us three wishes. God desires more than anything that we become united fully with Him in heaven. If we are living in accord with our Creator then our deepest desire will be union with Him. In this sense, God answers our deepest desire when we follow His commandments. Notice that it is not out of duty or expectation, but we follow Him out of love because we desire unity with Him.
Let’s pray for the grace today and every day that we would be able to follow God’s commandments so that we can ultimately have our deepest desire filled, the desire of unity with Him.
Daily Reading
Wednesday after Epiphany
Reading I 1 John 4:11-18 Beloved, if God so loved us, we also must love one another. No one has ever seen God. Yet, if we love one another, God…
Saint of the Day
Saint Apollinaris
Saint Apollinaris (d. 175), a renowned 2nd-century bishop, defended Christianity through an “Apology” to Emperor Marcus Aurelius after a Quadi victory.
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