Faith First

What must God think of us when we take so many of His blessings for granted? Usually it takes removal of a blessing before we fully appreciate its gift in our lives. Take for example, the gift of electricity. Driving past an electrical substation on the way home from Mass this morning, my husband and I saw the brightest, whitest light. Understanding electricity my husband warned me not to look at the extreme light. Something had blown. Just for having looked for that quick second my eyes hurt. That’s scary.

We came home to no power. Funny all that we take for granted, isn’t it? No lights, heat, water, Internet. Couldn’t do much that I’d planned to do. But an option presented itself: three of my four sons were home together waiting to drive up to Cleveland to watch the Cavaliers play the Celtics. Big game and all were excited. Goofy, in fact. Puffing up their macho-ness against one another in a playful fashion. Who could lift whom up in the air? Who was stronger? Lots of sparring. Our boys became my husband’s and my entertainment. That hasn’t happened in ages, and it was very fun. It never would have happened had our power been on after church. Just as one blessing was taken away another was given.

Nobody likes it when something is taken away from us, be it our electricity, our sight, our job, our child. All sorts of horrible things happen in the world that we will never understand. I don’t think we are supposed to understand. But these misfortunes and tragedies have a way of pulling us off our chartered course onto a different path – the path onto which God places us for reasons perhaps known only to Him.

We must have faith. Without faith life is a series of mishaps with no purpose. We must believe and trust God to take care of us. When He shuts the door we must set our sights on the window trusting that God will open it. Faith comes first. Then God acts.