SING AND SHOUT FOR JOY…GREAT IN YOUR MIDST IS THE HOLY ONE OF ISRAEL

⏰Monday of the Third Week of Lent (29 February 2016)

?2 Kgs 5:1-15a; Ps 42:2, 3; 43:3, 4 (R. Ps 42:3); Luke 4:24-30

✍Rev. Fr. JohnBosco Chimaobi Ezeonwumelu (Issele-Uku Diocese)

?”SING AND SHOUT FOR JOY…GREAT IN YOUR MIDST IS THE HOLY ONE OF ISRAEL” (Isa 12:6)

My dear, it is a new working week. I don’t know what are your goals and targets this week or what might be posing serious threats to the actualisation of your goals. Do not be afraid! Look around you and see that great around you is the Holy One of Israel. Once you plan with him, you will always end in victory.??

Most times, we give in to fear or even experience failure because we fail to recognize that we can do all things through Christ who strengthens us (Phil 4:13).??

Consider the reaction of the king of Israel after he got the letter from the king of Aram demanding for the cure of the army commander, Naaman (cf. 2 Kings 5:1-15). Negligence or overfamiliarity must have made him to forget that there is God in Israel, and he tore his clothes (2 Kings 5:7). It would take Naaman, a foreigner to remind him later (cf. 2 Kings 5:15).?

Notice also that pride and pomposity would have made Naaman to miss the miracle because he expected the man of God to come out and do some magic for his healing and also for the fact that there are better rivers in his place than in Israel (cf. 2 Kings 5:11-12).☹

Those attitudes of negligence, overfamiliarity, pride and pomposity, including impatience are the reasons why many of us, like the Jews (cf. Luke 4:24-27) miss our blessings from God. We keep running from pillar to post in search of a miraculous God when he had told us, “I am with you always till the end of time” (Matt 28:20).?

May he give us the grace to value his presence among us. And may he save us from all that will distract us from the blessings he has prepared for us, this week and beyond. Amen.??

I wish you a blessed and grace-filled working week. It is well with you.??