“Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, who has blessed us in Christ with every spiritual blessing in the heavens, as God chose us in Christ …to be holy and without blemish before God.” What God desires for us is truly ennobling but also embarrassing!
God breathes the breath of life into each and every one of us. God gifts us with the gift of life and does so with the desire that we will live in and with God now and forever. What a great grace and blessing for us! We live in and with God when we are faithful to God – faithful to God in prayer, faithful to God in allowing the teaching of God to shape all that we think, say and do, faithful in allowing God to use us as the instruments through whom God becomes present in our world once more. When we serve as instruments through whom God is present in our world through us, then we are also living in and with God in our relationships with other persons. We know that God wants us to be open to all in love, to be persons who seek forgiveness and reconciliation, persons who have a deep concern for the poor, the neglected, the forgotten. When we live in faithfulness to God, we are holy – a reflection of God to the world and our lives are without blemish. What a marvelous dignity we can have as sons and daughters of God!
The embarrassment comes when I recognize how unfaithful I have been to God. How many times have I neglected God through a lack of attention to prayer? How often have I neglected God in not allowing the teaching of God to shape who I am, how I live? How often have I neglected God in failing to be an instrument of God’s presence in the world through my failure to be a person of rich compassion, a person who welcomes all, a person who offers forgiveness and reconciliation to all? How often have I failed to be a person who has a profound concern for the poor and the forgotten? Great is the dignity that I am offered, but too often I refuse that dignity by a failure to live in faithfulness to God.
Let us pray today that we will embrace the wonderful dignity that God offers us!