THE GIFT OF FAITH

 

THE GIFT OF FAITH

God has gifted us with faith and its potentials. It is not something that we produce from our toils. Our task is to make that gift of faith grow and bear fruit. Once we recognize it, we ought to appreciate and use it. We thank God for the gift and wonder of its potentials. The crucial, critical, and hardest part is to make it relevant and useful. Living out our faith involves entrusting ourselves fully to God and His Word. Being faithful is forgetting ourselves and submitting our will, mind, and memory to the Lord. In other words, to be a person of faith is to believe even in the impossible and to be God’s faithful child.

My own faith was tested when the church I was assigned to was burned barely a month after I arrived and a week after my installation. I was overwhelmed by the task I was faced with. The fundraising, design, construction, and meetings to monitor the project were daunting. At the same time, I had my pastoral ministry to attend to and fulfill. I saw it as a great burden at first. However, in prayer, I realized it was a great opportunity for my faith to grow. Together with the parish community, we relied on God. We also called on our patron saint to intercede for us. There were lots of difficulties and challenges. Many did not believe we could build the church we started. Some criticized us and even abandoned us. But we kept our faith. We believed that God and His saint would always be with us. And They were! After three years, the church was built. Thanks be to God and to our patron saint.

While God had given us many things, we still don’t have enough. No matter how intelligent, rich, powerful, and popular we are, we have our limits. We can only do so much. It is foolish to think we can live without God, much more not to believe in Him. Jesus tells us to have faith no matter how small. Having faith—that is, to live it out—would be enough for us to move mountains. It means we walk with God in everything, believing that nothing is impossible. Fr. Benny Tuazon

 ---------- REFLECTION QUESTIONS ----------

How has your faith been tested? Did the experience deepen your faith?

Deepen my faith in You, Lord. Amen.