“….We tend to lose the perspective of priestly life. Most of us have the idea that our life in the priesthood and in the ministry is about how much God loves me and wants to fulfill my dreams and my desires and my ambitions and my goals and my objectives. And what God wants to do is make something wonderful out of me, and lift me up, and elevate me, and fulfill all the hopes of my heart. It is more about God loving me so much that He wants to do all of this, than it is about me, loving him.”
The quoted paragraph is an excerpt of Msgr. Tulabing’s article published in another newspaper. As I was reading his article, specifically the aforementioned passages, it made me realize one thing — we demand so much from God.
We keep asking for things, praying for the fulfillment of our dreams, solutions to our problems, beseeching God to give these to us as soon as possible. And because we are so engrossed with when or how God will give us the answer to all our prayers, we constantly overlook the fact that it has been a “one-way-street” ever since. Meaning, we keep asking but we never stopped to ask ourselves what we have given to God.
Please don’t get me wrong. I am not saying that we should not pray for what we want.
Naturally, since God is the source of everything, it is to God that we address our needs. But why don’t we — for a moment — stop asking and start making an inventory of what we have done for our Creator. Why don’t we start showing our Creator that we are appreciative of everything that has been done to us? But how can we do this? Going to church is definitely not enough. Listening to the priest’s admonitions are not adequate. Saying that “we love God with all our heart” will sound like a travesty when not accompanied by actions.
In what way is our relationship with God a “one-way-street”?
As a Parent – God gave us children to cherish, instruct, and provide for. In Proverbs 22:6, God says to “Train up a child in the way he should go; even when he is old he will not depart from it.” But what do we do? We don’t have time to teach our children the proper values because we are so busy with our office work and too preoccupied with our professional activities outside of the home. We entrust their instruction to school teachers and guidance counselors, or even to church pastors, priests, and laymen. We are so busy earning money that we forgot what God has ordered us to do as parents — to constantly guide our children so that they may become righteous and productive citizens when they become adults. And still, we say we love God when we can’t even adhere to the gospel?
As a Husband – God gave us the woman we love and is united with her till death. We are supposed to love and cherish her and not hurt her using our manly strength. We are supposed to protect her and provide for her needs. We are supposed to respect her and to listen and give value to her opinions. When we are in the wrong, we are supposed to apologize to her and never allow false pride to stop us from admitting our faults.
In 1 Timothy 3:2 ESV, God said, “Therefore an overseer must be above reproach, the husband of one wife, sober-minded, self-controlled, respectable, hospitable, able to teach…” Based on the Scriptures, it is God’s intention for the husband to have self-control (even when they are quarreling), to be friendly and be receptive to her needs, teach her mildly and with love when she commits wrong. Yet, we do the contrary.
Due to her physical softness, we hurt her. We also abandon her when we can no longer fulfill our duties and obligations and mindlessly leave her to fend for her own. We hurt her feelings when she happens to be getting a higher salary than we do because our ego cannot accept it. We do not support her aspirations and we consider her interests as purely female vanities. We relegate her to the kitchen because we believe that is her place. We see her as an object that can be discarded anytime, because after all, she is JUST a woman.
If we do this, we definitely do not love God because we are dumping like trash the person God wants us to love. We don’t listen to what God wants us to do. We demand so much, yet, we don’t do what God expects us to fulfill.
As an Entrepreneur – in 1 Peter 4:10, God said, “Each of you should use whatever gift you have received to serve others, as faithful stewards of God’s grace in its various forms.” According to the Bible, as someone engaged in business, we should first think of our business as a service to others before thinking of how much money we can make. It’s about giving, in order to get.
While money is vital to our existence in this world, it shouldn’t be the top priority. We should make our enterprises as avenues or opportunities to serve others. But what do we do? We do everything and anything we can to maximize our profits to the point of deceiving our clients, partners, and other stakeholders. As long as we achieve the bottom line (profit), we don’t care about other people. Is this showing our appreciation to the God who really is the source of our business?
As a Public Servant – It is written in the Bible in Matthew 6:1-4 that one should “Beware of practicing your righteousness before other people in order to be seen by them, for then you will have no reward from your Father who is in heaven…. thus, when you give to the needy, sound no trumpet before you, as the hypocrites do in the synagogues and in the streets, that they may be praised by others…. but when you give to the needy, do not let your left hand know what your right hand is doing, so that your giving may be in secret…”
But what do we do? We “do good” so that we may be praised or our names be printed in huge tarpaulins for everyone to see; we tell people the “good things” we have done then we wait that they proclaim our deeds. Is this the real essence of public service?
God has loved us since time immemorial, perhaps now is the time that we return the favor? It’s time for us to do our part.
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Author’s email: [email protected]
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