The Journey: miles to go...

WORD 2day: Friday, 1st week in Ordinary time 

January 17, 2025 - Hebrews 4: 1-5,11; Mark 2: 1-12

Our journey of faith is long; it is not a short trip or a sprint, it is a marathon. It is a life long pilgrimage in its essence. The most trying part of it, apart from moving itself, is the endurance and perseverance. We cannot fool ourselves or fake being on this journey. If we take this journey seriously, we are at it; if not, we have already lost... we are only deceiving ourselves. There are three tendencies to check in our daily life experiences:

Are we those who hear or do we truly listen? The letter to the Hebrews makes this difference - "hearing the message did them no good because they did not share the faith of the those who listened!" We hear a lot of things daily, and we hear also the Word of God coming on to us, from varied quarters. But the hitch is, it would not be sufficient hearing when it comes to the Word of God. We need to listen; we need to receive and we need to allow the Word to transform us from within.

Are we saying, what we are thinking? Saying prayers, praising God, and speaking about God - may be easier when compared to truly praying, placing God first and sharing God with the others. The latter is about conviction, about our tranforming inner experience. We are called to bring these two tiers, as close as possible - the inner thoughts and external behaviour. 

Are we persons in awe or persons of faith? At times we remain persons in awe, wondering at the greatness of God and even praising it at moments when we see the glory manifest. But this falls short of who a person of faith could be. A person of faith would be the one who is ready to pick up the mat and walk, the one who is ready to believe in the constant relationship with God and move on even amidst all difficulties, the one who know the journey has miles to go, and I need to move, keep moving!