The priest from last Sunday’s mass posed a question at the beginning of the mass that really struck me. He asked, “How far would you go in following Christ?” How far can we actually go in serving Him? Are we willing to just drop everything and follow Him like what the disciples did? Are we mission ready?
It seems very easy to answer, but actually it’s hard. A good amount of us would say “to the ends of the earth but…” or “wherever He calls me but..” Most of the time we are very willing to say yes, but we always have our “buts and ifs.”
One of the songs that is stuck on my head from the recent TNC is the song “Mission Ready.” As the song goes
“We’re ready to go for Your glory, Shouting a praise, Oh God Almighty, To be salt of the earth and light to the world For You, Jesus
We’re laying down our fears and worries, Your love will lead us to our victories, To be salt of the earth and light to the world For You, Jesus”
After listening to this song, a lot of questions came to my mind. Am I ready to proclaim His words? Am I ready to be the salt of the earth and light to the world? Am I ready to lay down all my fears and worries and just follow Him? My answer? I don’t know, but I trust in Him that He would reveal it to me at the right time. He would know when the right time would be. All I have to do is to wait. Like what Jesus did. He didn’t bother the Father to simply reveal everything to Him and get everything done. He waited. He waited for the right time and the right place to reveal God’s plans and to fulfill them. He waited for God’s time.
I am firm believer of the phrase, “God will never put you in a situation where He knows you can’t handle it.” Sometimes, God has planned us to go through various victories and obstacles because He wants to prepare us for our mission. Sometimes, it would be easy, sometimes it would be hard, but the time to be mission ready for Him will eventually come, in His time.
With God: Nothing is impossible and our impossible turns into nothing.
The year 2013 was probably the most difficult time of my life so far. I lost someone special to me, various changes happened in my life, and I’ve been through a lot. Little did I know, God is preparing me for something greater. Yes, it was tough, but at the end of all of it, He made me stronger and looked at life in a different angle. Being able to experience all those struggles allowed me to let God take care of the rest and I was able to learn to fully trust in Him and all His plans. I realised those struggles were really not struggles, but blessings.
Following Him doesn’t only involve us, but Him within us. In order for us to follow Him, we need to let Him work within us first. Most of the time, we tend to live in our own “secured” worlds. Secured: because sometimes we tend to ignore Him even though He is just right there. Sometimes, we close our doors to Him because we don’t want His way to happen. Sometimes we have the tendency to not let Him work through us. Sometimes we are just so afraid of what could happen so we choose to turn our back away, but sometimes it’s okay to be scared. Changes happen because the Lord wants to prepare us for our greater mission. In every mission, there is a change. Changes happen so we can grow and be closer to Him. I know sometimes, change seem so scary, but it’s okay. Being scared is perfectly normal, but we just have to remember that the Lord is always with us. With the grace of the Lord, our impossibilities turn into nothing.
If the Lord is limitless, so can we; if we just have to allow Him to work through us, with us, and in us.
Praise God!
Lord, help me to spread Your fragrance everywhere I go.
Flood my soul with Your spirit and life.
Penetrate and possess my whole being so utterly,
That my life may only be a radiance of Yours.
Shine through me, and be so in me
That every soul I come in contact with
May feel Your presence in my soul.
Let them look up and see no longer me, but only Jesus!
Stay with me and then I shall begin to shine as You shine,
So to shine as to be a light to others;
The light, O Jesus will be all from You; none of it will be mine;
It will be you, shining on others through me.
Let me thus praise You the way You love best, by shining on those around me.
Let me preach You without preaching, not by words but by my example,
By the catching force of the sympathetic influence of what I do,
The evident fullness of the love my heart bears to You. Amen.