J: 080127

“But after you have suffered for a little while, the God of all grace, who calls you to share his eternal glory in union with Christ, will himself perfect you and give you firmness, strength, and a sure foundation.” (Peter I 5:10)

Today’s reading continues the topic of “trials” and “tribulations”. There’s one part of the reading that gives me different perspective of trials. Most of the time, as we are talking about the trials and tribulations God gave us, we seemed to think of the bad times, difficult times, sad times. I mean, at least, that’s what I always tend to recall… but trials and tribulations can also be in forms of sin and sickness. And we often don’t realize the situations until some consequences hit us after a while. The tendency to commit sin is in everyone. The temptation can appear as something very beautiful, or something right to do, or even something that seems insignificant. Our eyes can often be blinded by our senses. And those are the trials and tribulations we have to face all our lives.

This is the reason that during times of those tests, we must “stay put” until our relationship with God is firm and fixed, like a “permanent habit”. We can be committing the same sins, and making the same mistakes as the relationship with God is being established. We can be sickened by the difficult situations as the relationship with God is being established. Nonetheless, we have to do our best, keeping Lord Jesus, our Heavenly Father, and Holy Spirit in our hearts, and in the meantime, putting everything in their hands, until the relationship is firm and fixed, like a “permanent habit”, until “His eternal glory establishes, strengthens, and settles us”.

Our soul IS like a machine powered by God. There must be a constant connection to God to keep the soul running because only He can “lead us not into temptation, and deliver us from the evil one”.