and again in chapter 13:
[the profet Samuel said to the king Saul:] “You have done a foolish thing,” Samuel said. “You have not kept the command the LORD your God gave you; if you had, he would have established your kingdom over Israel for all time.
and again in chapter 15: Then the word of the LORD came to Samuel: 11 “I regret that I have made Saul king, because he has turned away from me and has not carried out my instructions”.
I wonder: can God make a mistake in choosing people? He already knows the paths he's planned for us and for our own good; but He also knows the paths which we'll take; sometimes it's His own, whilst others it is not... yet He seems to choose people that once in a while betray Him; why that?
I think we only have to say it is a mystery, yet it’s one very useful to us… It is only in this way that if we have to complain about “our the king”, God might say “do not worry my child, for I wanted this king, and any evil thing he will do to you will follow on me”.
In John 19,11a it is written: Jesus answered, “You would have no power over me if it were not given to you from above”.
In anything we are called to do we shall not forget there’s Someone who’s called us to do it and good or bad as we might be, He knows it and He thinks of Himself as responsible for it.
We simply need to pray as if everything depends on God and act as if everything depends on us.
If God, who knows where we’ll walk, puts his trust on us; puts Himself on our hands as a small piece of broken bread, why shall we not trust people? What are we afraid of? That they cheat us? That they hurt us? Charity is always good for the ones who make it and not for who receive it.
For few hours today I have listened to a 54 year old man who lost his job a couple of months ago; he cried most of the time and he was not eating since yesterday morning; he keeps begging here and there and he knocks at the Churches’ doors, but he cannot eat everyday… he said he wanted to suicide few days ago… I felt so touched, I managed to host him in our monastery, to feed him, to listen to him again tonight and we’ve given him some money in order to go back to his family in the north of Italy. Another monk said he’s a liar… he says it’s true he’s poor, but the whole story is simply made up… now I do not know what to think and I feel I’d better not to think too much of it.
I’ll greet him tomorrow morning as a brother, we’ll have breakfast together before he leaves and before my morning prayers and then I will begin a new day, happy and serene and not ashamed to have welcomed, fed and listened to my Lord who’d visited us even in the shoes of a probable liar.
1 commenti:
I was on staff for a church long ago, before I started homeschooling my son.
One day the pastor was upset with me because I took a woman and her kids home after they came to get food from the food pantry.
He told me my mercy gift would get me into trouble someday. That people would try to take advantage of me.
I told him at the time that I'd rather stand before God having had a few cheaters take advantage of me than to have to explain why I let someone go hungry and made little kids walk a couple miles to their house with bags of groceries.
Just as God tells us we will entertain angels unaware I wonder if He sends along those who appear to be liars... just to see our response of mercy?
That's one test I know you will pass. :)
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