Article for Bethlehem Matrimonial - Aug 2016
During a recent retreat I attended, one of the
brothers shared an experience. One evening his 2 year old son developed a
fever. They tried to give some medicines but the fever was not subsiding. He
tried to call up one of his doctor friends, usually always available on call,
but that day he never answered the phone. He then tried contacting a nearby
hospital and for some strange reason even after multiple attempts the hospital
staff also didn’t answer.
He got really worried about the situation and that’s
when he suddenly felt someone talking to him from within. He very clearly heard
a question being asked to him. “You’ve tried giving medicines, called the
doctor twice and called the hospital multiple times. How many times did you
call Me?” That’s when the brother realized that despite being a man of faith,
God became the last resort for him in the event of an emergency instead of
being the first one to have called for help. He apologized and the rest is
history!
How many of you could really relate to this story? It
is an interesting observation that I saw him making that day about many of us.
Most of us, especially facing adverse situations in life, often tend to resolve
the problem ourselves initially in many ways. At last when everything else
fails, we turn to our good God for help. Our faith most often becomes the last
thing to be taken out and applied in our lives. Ideally it should’ve been the
very first weapon we should’ve wielded to fight against the negative forces
that cast its shadows in our lives.
Faith plays a crucial role in every form of life,
married or otherwise. The complexities increase in your life especially when
you share your life with someone and later when you are blessed with children
as well. This makes it all the more important to be aware of the fact that it
is not just enough to practice your faith, but to live it. Going to a church on
a weekly basis or remembering God during bad times are merely practicing your
faith. It isn’t that easy to bring in the concept of living the faith in our
lives though that’s what we are required to attempt.
One of the easiest things to do in life is to take
people or things for granted. Look around and observe how many blessings that
we’ve in our lives that we never bothered to be grateful for. Right from our
childhood; think about all the good things that happened in your life. Starting
from loving parents and siblings; getting good education, landing up in a good
job, being blessed with a wonderful partner and kids, leading a healthy life
and many more positive aspects in your life. How many of them are we really
thankful to God for. We take many of them for granted as if we were supposed to
get it!
There are many good things that happened to you in the
past and there are many happening now and many more are bound to happen in
future. They are all there, not because you worked for it, but because you are
blessed to receive it. This blessing requires you to be constantly thankful and
the only way to do that is to live in faith. It is quite easy to be complacent
and ignore the source of these blessings. It is easier to question your faith
especially when you go through bad times. But that’s when you need to remind
yourself about the other side of your faith. It is the side where you go across
your current boundary of faith and experience the love of your Creator.
Your bad times are similar to those days when you have
a fight with your partner. The day when you hug each other and look in the eyes
of your sweetheart and say a sorry, you feel the rush of happiness back in your
life. The feeling is similar when you get back to your Creator and try to be
one with Him in your faith. You won’t even realize how quickly bad times give
way for good ones!
May you be blessed to experience the other side of
faith and live in the love and peace of our good God!
