Daily Reflections - June 12,2013

SOLE CREDIT FROM GOD

 

I have been through some very treacherous climbs up mountains. I remember being really afraid once, as we wended our way down from Pulag via the Kabayan trail. One slip and you’d be a goner, as there was precious little to hold onto, save for loose little pebbles that rolled off the steep incline, down to the deep gorges.

       I have so many similar situations in life when, in retrospect, I knew I could not give real credit to myself for pulling them off, but to the invisible hand of an invisible but real God, who guided me, stayed by my side and kept me going. I am just being honest here — I am not that athletic, nor that brilliant, nor that gifted with instrumental skills to have done what I indeed have done over the past decades.

       Someone up there must have really been watching over me. When I was eight I was run over by a car. I almost drowned when I was just a little older. How I survived the first two years of my ministry as a 21-year-old brother in the boonies of Calamba is still beyond me. How I managed to keep body and soul together immediately after the notorious “snap elections” of 1986 is something I still consider to this day. It was nothing less than miraculous, given the fact that, just a few months before, an intoxicated and viciously angry military officer accosted me one night, brandishing a long firearm, ready to shoot me, for the simple reason that he came home one evening while his wife was busy in Church attending a meeting that I had presided at.

       I look back to so many blessings, so many “achievements.” I make Paul’s words my own, for sole credit can only come from God, who “has made me a qualified minister” in my own right. The psalmist takes up the slack for me, and today, I make this prayer mine, too, and hopefully yours: “Extol the Lord… Holy is the Lord, our God!” Fr. Chito Dimaranan, SDB

 

REFLECTION QUESTION: Look back at your achievements in life, big and small. Can you honestly say you accomplished them solely through your own efforts?

 

Thank You, Lord, for always staying with me, prodding me on, leading me to the realization of Your mission for me.