Devotion for this week

Today i offer you reflections from Katka my awesome friend in Christ. Here are her thoughs translated to English. Have blessed week.

The whole week we take care about our everyday duties. Probably each of us must quickly get up in the morning, to fulfill their obligations, to enjoy with loved ones and then again to rest and sleep. In addition, we care and we worry about many things. Maybe we are not the types that are just waiting everything will be ok, we are  thinking  ahead and we are planning a lot. God created us to care and to plan. However, it can be called by other names: impatient, worried….

During this period, in my church was reading  16th chapter of Matthew’s Gospel.  I read it at home again and it reads like this:

“But they reasoned with themselves, saying: “We did not take the bread!”

But Jesus knew and said, “little faith, why you are thinking that you have no bread?

Yet understand, neither remember the five loaves for the five thousand and how many baskets you took up?  Neither the seven loaves for the four thousand, and how many baskets you took up? “

Jesus talk to  the apostles, and they thoughts are  somewhere else – like us – with problems at work, the children, the other things of this world. And Jesus goes on quite sharply: calls them “little faith” because they think the insignificant and, moreover, reminds them of the situation that experienced with Him and forget them.

We all already experienced God in our lives how He took care of us and we still worry about if we have enough money, if my job will be here tomorrow… Did he saved us that time?  Did he took care about us? Yes He did…… And He will do  it again even when we are in deepest  problems in our lives , He will lift us again. He said He will be with us ALWAYS.

Furthermore, in chapter 16 we read about how Peter confesses that Jesus is the Messiah. Jesus praises and rewards for this effort to know him. He even says: “I will give you the keys of the kingdom of heaven”.

I believe that God will reward us when we try to get to know him. God is about the only person who can appreciate our efforts, our intentions. People tell us  that effort is not enough.  For God is enough He is merciful.  He knows our great ideas, but also our weaknesses, which not allow these ideas to take place.

My favorite Jesuit Father Adamík talked about how  everything start in our hearts and  our thoughts. A lot of times we started and not completed, we tried, but gave up.   We say it is good, so try it out. But it should be as follows:” I am convinced of this, I know it in depth, studying God’s words, working on that and it is apparently seen in my deeds. I don’t need to focus  on the external manifestations,  it will going from the inside out itself naturally. Change in our hearts will be show by our actions clearly and beautifully without additional efforts.

Furthermore, Matthew continues :From that time began Jesus reveals to his disciples that he must go to Jerusalem and suffer many things of the elders and chief priests and they kill him, and the third day  He will rise from the dead. Peter took him aside and began to rebuke him: “May the merciful God, Lord That never happen to you!” He turned and said to Peter, “Get behind me, Satan! Scandalizes me, because you have no sense of the things of God, but of men!”

This got me, surprised and shocked. Peter, the same who have just received the keys of the kingdom of heaven is Jesus called Satan. A little strong, what do you think? First, we do not see  Jesus like that. Our conception of Jesus is that the only pervasive peace, joy, love, and that such words do not belong to his vocabulary, moreover, because Peter just wanted to protect him, wanted him well. However, this is fundamental to our faith: Jesus didn’t allow himself  to live happily life without problems and pain , so we are His followers and we will be not protective from problems and difficulties in this life as well. We will have great spiritual moments with our God however we will suffer as well.

Already our grandparents used to say: Whom God loves, the Cross will be visited.  And this is Jesus trying to say, because in the next verse says: “Whoever wishes to come after me, let him deny himself, take up his cross and follow me.” Speaking of the cross, we will get only one we can carry no bigger even it sometimes seems different….

Some Christian live in their small happy bubble that all good things are from God and they enjoy all of that warm feeling…. But as we see, God is true, real, raw, such as life, because He is the THE WAY, THE TRUTH AND THE LIFE. And this gives us hope that we can live with God in everyday life, not just the occasional happy feeling we have with Him, but also in fears and worries . Because  God is always with us He is not sitting on a cloud.