As a Catholic, I have a confession to make. I sometimes watch televangelists.
While there are many things that make me uncomfortable about this style of evangelizing, I have always felt it would be arrogant, and foolish, of me to suggest that God limits the wisdom of the Holy Spirit to only those of one particular faith tradition. And very often I am edified by a particular insight.
Today’s bit of wisdom centered on our tendency, as human beings, to allow the miracles in our lives to become ordinary.
God fills our lives with miracles every day; someone to love us, the birth of a child, a new job, a promotion, a return to health, or good friends. At first, our hearts are full of gratitude and love for God’s gift, but too often, when love demands something of us, or work becomes a challenge, the miracle becomes ordinary, routine, not worth the effort or fullness of heart with which we once embraced the gift.
This preacher used the example of the birth of a child, a miracle that fills us with love so profound it’s hard to even describe. And then, the child becomes a teenager and we ask, “God, why did you do this to me??”
I laughed, having had to deal with six teenagers during my lifetime.
The preacher followed this analogy with a Scripture passage, and that’s when I really started paying attention, because it was the same passage that had come across my desk three times in the past three days, and one I had never read before.
“But I have this against you, that you have turned away from your first love. So keep in mind where you were at first, and be changed in heart and do the first works; or I will come to you, and will take away your light from its place, if your heart is not changed.” Revelations 2:4-5
Today would be a good day to remember the miracles, so “ordinary” doesn’t become a way of life and we find ourselves grieving the loss of God's gifts to us.
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