Oftentimes, we encounter
things in our life that we least expect and at some point, consider to be
unwelcomed – these are what we call obstacles.
In the reading, the
Israelites asked, “Why has the Lord permitted us to be defeated today by the
Philistines?” A type of questioning that sounds familiar not just for the
Israelites but also to us. Most commonly, we reach the point of questioning and
doubt. We ask, “Lord, why?” or “Why me, Lord?” or “Lord, why did you allow such
thing to happen?” Driven by our emotions, we ask these kind of questions like
how the Israelites asked and when we finally reach the peak of our emotions, we
start to doubt God, somehow make what we call “tampo” or worst, get angry at him.
And then we start to pray.
We cannot deny that the most common moment in our lives that we fervently
prayed are the most crucial times or moments we have. Why? Simple. Because it
is in these moments that we feel so desperate about something, when we feel so
bad about something that happened, or we feel so hurt that we just can’t deal
with the pain anymore.
In the Gospel, Jesus
cleansed the leper. As we all know, in the Bible times, lepers are the people
that are being outcast in the society because they are considered to be
unclean. But when the leper came to Jesus, without any hesitation, he was moved
with pity, stretched out his hand and touched him. He healed him.
Like the leper in the
Gospel, we have our own ways of being unclean. Unclean it terms of the various
number of sins we have committed. We are unclean. More unclean than the lepers,
maybe. But it makes no difference at all. If we call upon the Lord and ask Him
to cleanse us from all our sins and transgressions, we know He never says “no”.
More so, like what the
Psalm says, “Redeem us, Lord, because of your mercy”, it gives us a certain
assurance that the Lord remains merciful and compassionate to His people. Even
though at times, we may get to offend Him in the things we do, His mercy
remains infinite. No matter how big or small our sin is. The Lord will always
redeem us, He will always save us. You know why? Because His love for us it too
much, much more than we can fathom.
In our daily encounter
with the random happenings in our life, some makes us happy and some makes us
sad. But no matter what emotions we tend to have in our everyday, let us be
reminded that the Lord is always willing to listen to us. He doesn’t care if
it’s our problems we are sharing to Him or our happy and most celebrating
moments. He just wants us to continue to communicate to Him. Because when all
else fails and everyone else turns their back on you, the Lord remains. And He
will stay no matter what.
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