Looking Beyond with Trust
Life may seem to be full of knots and threads, but it is, in reality, the marvelous design that God’s love is weaving for us on the basis of our faith. We will see how abandoning ourselves trustingly to God is a source of light and infinite peace for us and for many others.
“We know that all things work together for good, for those who love God” (Rom 8:28).
The Word we are proposing to live this month is taken from Paul’s letter to the Romans. It is a long text, full of reflections and teachings, and written before his departure for Rome. Its purpose was to prepare the community that he did not know personally for his visit.
Chapter 8, in particular, emphasizes new life according to the Spirit and the promise of eternal life that awaits individuals, peoples, and the entire universe.
“We know that all things work together for good, for those who love God.”
Every word of this sentence is full of meaning.
Paul proclaims that, first and foremost, as Christians, we have come to know God’s love and are aware that every human experience is part of God’s great plan of salvation.
Everything – Paul says – contributes to the fulfillment of this plan: suffering, persecution, personal failures, and weaknesses, but above all, the action of God’s Spirit in the hearts of the people who welcome him.
The Spirit indeed gathers up the groaning of humanity and all of creation1 and makes them his own: this is the guarantee that God’s plan will be fulfilled.
Our part should be to actively respond to God’s love by loving and entrusting ourselves as well as all our needs to the Father. We should witness to that hope in the “new heavens and new earth”2 that he prepares for those who trust in him.
“We know that all things work together for good for those who love God.”
How, then, should we welcome and accept this demanding proposal in our everyday lives?
Focolare founder Chiara Lubich suggested: “First of all, we must never stop at the purely external, material or profane aspect of things, but believe that every fact is a message with which God expresses his love for us. We will then see how life which may seem to us like a piece of cloth full of knots and threads vaguely intertwined, is, in reality, something else: it is the marvelous design that God’s love is weaving on the basis of our faith. Secondly, we must trustingly and totally abandon ourselves to this love at all times, both in small and big things that happen in life. Indeed, if we know how to entrust ourselves to God’s love in ordinary situations, he will give us the strength to entrust ourselves to him even in the most difficult moments, such as when we suffer or experience illness, or at the very moment of death. So let us try to live this way, not out of self-interest – so that God can show us his plans and we find consolation from him – but only out of love. We will see how this trusting abandonment is a source of light and infinite peace for us and for many others.”3
Let’s trust in God when we have difficult choices to make, just as O.L. from Guatemala did. “I was working as a cook in a home for the aged. Down the corridor, I heard an old lady asking for a drink of water. I knew the regulations stated that I should not leave the kitchen but I poured some water and gently offered it to her. The old lady’s eyes lit up. Halfway through the glass, she took my hand and said, ‘Stay with me for ten minutes!’ I explained that I shouldn’t and that I risked being fired from my job. But that look of hers… I stayed. Then she asked me to pray together: ‘Our Father…’ And at the end, she requested, ‘Sing something, please.’ I remembered the words of the song ‘We will take nothing with us, only love…’ The other residents stared at us. The woman was happy and said, ‘God bless you, my daughter,’ and died shortly afterwards. As expected, I lost my job because I had left the kitchen. Though I could no longer give financial support to my extended family, I was happy and at peace. I had responded to God’s call, and that woman was not alone when she took the most important step in her life.”
Letizia Magri
1 Cf. Rom 8:22-27
2 Cf. Rev 21:1
3 C. Lubich, Word of Life, August 1984
