Amazed At The Opportunities To Do God’s Will

I remember the first time I went to a Big League Baseball Game. I was ~10 years old. My eyes were as “big as basketballs”. The stadium was magnificent….the field was perfectly manicured .… the green grass, the white lines, the red seats, the blue sky. It was really something. Over the years, I’ve been to quite a few games and it’s never been as dramatic as that first time; in some ways, future trips even seemed ordinary. 

If something important happens one time, the memory tends to remain prominent. If the same thing happens repeatedly it can seem ordinary and we don’t appreciate it in the same way…. ”been there, done that”. 

While this may not be that important when we’re talking about going to a baseball game, it is very important when we’re talking about interactions with God and with people of God …. when we’re talking about doing God’s will.  It’s a danger if we become casual in our interactions with God or with our spouse or with our friends. Listen to this:

“If it had been your good pleasure, Lord, to ask one sole favor of us during our whole lifetime we would remain stunned by the request and doing your will this one time would be the event that determined our destiny. But because you put this great honor into our hands each day, each hour, each minute, we find it so normal that we become blasé and get bored with it.” (ref.Venerable Madeleine Delbrêl † 1964) 

I have a number of friends who are widowers. They had spent 30, 40 or 50+ years together with their wife … thousands of conversations…. certainly many very meaningful, but also many were routine and perhaps even some unpleasant. Yet, I’ve heard them exclaim, “oh if I could have one more conversation with my beautiful wife who has now passed… just one more brief look into her eyes ….  oh, how my heart aches now that she is no longer at my side”. 

So Dave, what’s the point of this BLOG? Well, I really want to make good use of the opportunities I still have to love God, to love my wife and family and friends. I don’t want to be casual or blasé regarding these opportunities. Time is passing and these great opportunities are diminishing.

Madeleine Delbrêl  goes on to say, “If we could understand how unthinkable the mystery of your (God’s) being is, we would be amazed at being able to know the glimmerings of your will. The day we understood this we would move through life like prophets … nothing would have that taste of mediocrity for all would be willed by you. Nothing would be too heavy to bear for all would be rooted in you. Nothing would bear the stamp of sadness for all would occur in the shade of your providence. Nothing would be tedious for all would be done out of love for you….To rewind the spool of thread, to write the letter, to wake the child, to cheer our husband up, to open the door, to answer the phone, to endure the headache: each act a springboard to ecstasy, each a bridge to cross from our poor ill will to the quiet bank of your serene good pleasure.”(ibid) Wow, beautifully said.

So dear Lord help us to see your holy will in our daily interactions and give us the grace to respond and to love even when we are tired and distracted. Help us to see that “nothing is too tedious, too heavy to bear for all should be done out of love for you.” Give us eyes to see that; give us grace to do that. Help us to appreciate each opportunity to love.