“‘Which of you, if your son asks for bread, will give him a stone?...” (Matthew 7:9).
Faith and fear are incompatible.
And I mean that in the truest way.
You see, if someone has faith – true faith in God – they cannot possibly have any room for fear. Faith is the knowledge that God is real and that God turns ALL THINGS to the GOOD and that God is perfect and perfectly able to take care of us.
If I truly believe that God loves me perfectly and is my perfect and eternal Father, how could I ever be afraid of anything that could possibly happen in my life? After all, if my Earthly father wants me to be happy and well and if my Earthly father worked during his life to feed me and clothe me and take care of me, then how much more is my God capable of?
“‘Which of you, if your son asks for bread, will give him a stone? Or if he asks for a fish, will give him a snake? If you, then, though you are evil, know how to give good gifts to your children, how much more will your Father in heaven give good gifts to those who ask Him!’” (Matthew 7:9-11).
And though that is such a short and simple little bit of Scripture, my gosh – it seems in this moment the very essence of faith…
Simply put, Christ was asking us to use our common sense. He was telling us that if we are flawed and we do so much for our children, how could it possibly be that God Himself would do any less for us…?
The problem comes because we do not see the things that we have been given by God because we measure them with our Earthly lives. We see a cancer diagnosis as a terrible tragedy, while – perhaps – God is using it to allow us to prepare for eternity. We see the loss of a child as an unspeakable tragedy, while – perhaps – God is allowing that innocent child to enter the Kingdom of Heaven and become your patron saint.
Saint Carlo Acutis died of leukemia when he was only a teenager. I cannot even begin to imagine the grief of his mother and his father at his passing. And yet, if he had not become sick and if he had not died, he would still be alive today. And if he were alive today, he would not be a Saint – for a Saint is a soul who has entered Heaven. And this means that very great good came of this terrible death… Perhaps, if that young man had lived, he would have entered into some great temptation and that would have meant that he would not achieve eternal life. Perhaps a longer earthly life would have prevented Saint Carlo from having an eternal life.
And I have been thinking about that today. Because it seems to me that it would be worth suffering any possible thing on this Earth to achieve such an eternity as that!
For with prayer, I stand on Holy Ground where everything is clear. Here. At the Foot of the Cross.
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