Does God always
give you what you need?
The prophet Elijah
is weary. In the first Book of Kings, he is fleeing from Queen
Jezebel, who wants to kill him, and so he prays for death. Instead, God sends him an angel who orders him to
get up and eat! Yet even when Elijah
follows orders and eats and drinks,
he’s still despondent, and lies down
again, but the angel is persistent, for he knows Elijah will have to be strengthened by that food if he is to
complete his mission for God. God gives Elijah what he needs, but Elijah seems reluctant to realize it. In Psalm 34, however, King David is more than aware that God gives him all he needs: I will
bless the Lord at all times, he says, for when the psalmist sought the Lord, the Lord answered him. God gives David everything he needs to
survive, and even to thrive.
Jesus also gives
us what we need, though we don’t always realize it. When, in John’s Gospel, Jesus tells the Jews
that he is the bread that came down from
heaven, they murmur with questions. What they fail to understand is that Jesus is
the Word of God, a Word spoken so profoundly that it has taken on flesh, flesh
that Jesus will give for the life of the
world. God gives us what we need –
Jesus, his Word, his Son – that we might be one with him, that we might be forgiving,
compassionate, and kind like him, that we might be his, forever.
Paul knows this:
he tells the Ephesians that they must be so focused on the mercy they’ve
received that they then manifest that mercy for others: be kind
to one another, compassionate, forgiving one another… Love is what Jesus is
about. Love is what his death is about –
that forgiveness that never relents, that mercy that is ours if we are open,
that is ours to share. It may be a
struggle to accept such infinite love, but if we are to call ourselves
Christians, we must embrace the love we need, the love God always gives us (in
spades!) and embody it for the sake of our world.
This post is based
on Fr. Pat’s Scripture class.
Image source: www.wordle.net
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