Moment With Betty

Last week, l talked about work life balance that is, finding a balance in our life. But today, considering the fact that we are getting close to the end of the year and coupled with the fact that we are looking forward to the second coming of Our Lord Jesus Christ, l thought it will be nice to talk about how we are preparing to receive the Messiah.

Just as we take our cars from time to time for wheel alignment and wheel balancing and as bankers also carry out from time to time, stock taking and accounts balancing, you will agree with me that our soul needs some kind of alignment and wheel balancing once in a while. It will therefore not be out of place to say that in the spiritual arena, it is equally important that every Christian from time to time carry out some spiritual alignment and spiritual wheel balancing, spiritual stock taking and spiritual balancing of accounts.

 Many years ago, l think it should be in the late 70s, one of the newspapers reported that some landlords where sued to court for keeping dirty premises, that was when Nigeria was good. Their offences included filled suck –away bins, dirty gutters, un- swept compounds. The culprits were discovered during the house –to- house inspection that was carried out then by the sanitary inspectors and they were penalized with some fines.

 Remembering this particular case as l meditate, this question popped up in my mind, “suppose Jesus was to conduct a similar house – to- house inspection this very moment, how many believers will be charged – “for keeping dirty souls”. As l ponder over this, l thought l should encourage us, my dear sisters and brothers, to use this time of preparation for the coming of Our Lord to carry out spiritual alignment and spiritual wheel balancing, spiritual stock- taking and spiritual balancing of accounts. This l believe will help us determine our readiness to receive Our Lord. Thus, l ask, how are you preparing? What stage are you in your preparation, where are you in your spiritual journey?  Are you still a drunkard, a maniac, a jealous person, a gossip, an envious person, an unforgiven person, where are you, are you progressing or are you retrogressing, where exactly are you in your preparation? ask yourself these questions.  Everybody should be able to ask himself or herself these questions so that we can assess how far we have gone in our preparation to welcome (Our Lord) Emmanuel.  I know that we will be happy when He comes but are we ready to welcome Him when He comes? For us to be fully ready, we will have to let go of those things which are not in conformity or in consonance with God’s will.

As we await His coming, we are challenged not to think about bringing ourselves alone but to also think about bringing others or someone to Jesus just as the four friends of the paralysed man did as we read in the gospel of (Luke 5: 17-26). They heard about Jesus and they came to hear his preaching and also brought their friend so that Jesus could heal him. They not only brought their friend but they went the extra mile to ensure that their friend met with Jesus despite all the odds and obstacles that confronted them. Seeing that the house was jam- packed, they were not deterred by the crowd rather, they went on top of the roof and in carrying out their apostolate duty, made a hole on the roof and let their friend down with his bed through the tiles into the midst before Jesus. We are told that when Jesus saw their faith, He said,” man your sins are forgiven you” and He performed a miracle mostly because of the faith of those four friends and not because of the faith of the paralysed man. These friends of the paralysed man overcame obstacles which seemed insurmountable. What mattered to them at that point in time was to secure a meeting between Jesus and their friend and so, they used every possible means to ensure that the meeting took place.

 Wao! what a great lesson this is for the apostolate that we as Christians have to do. We too are encouraged to emulate the doggedness of these great four friends and shun any obstacle or limitation that will prevent us from bringing our friends to Jesus. All we need to do is to just bring them to Him and leave the rest for Him, once we succeed in bringing them to Jesus, He takes care of everything. We don’t need to bother ourselves anymore just as the four friends did not. When they succeeded in letting down the bed which carried their friend in front of Jesus, they left the rest for Jesus to take care of. Maybe in our attempt to bring souls to God, we may have encountered obstacles, Jesus is telling us today to see these four friends as our role- models.

Therefore, no matter the challenges, obstacles, frustrations that we may encounter in our effort to bring people to God, we should not relent or stop doing good because for all it’s worth, whatever we do for our friend, neighbour, colleague or relation, we do for love of God and I pray today that God in His infinite mercy will continue to give us the grace to persevere in doing that which is good for the love Him. Amen.