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“O that you had hearkened to my commandments! Then your peace would have been like a river, and your righteousness like the waves of the sea.” (Isaiah 48:18)
Our first reading this morning contains a cry from God. It is not only to the people of Israel, but to us as well. “Oh, that you had listened to my commandments! Then your peace would have been like a river…” Do you consider God’s commandments to be too difficult? Then bear in mind that the difficulty in keeping God’s commandments is your lack of trust in God’s assurance of peace in the end. We desire peace, prosperity and everything good in life and at the same time we consider God’s commandments as a burden.
It is as though we do not even know what we want. We are like the children Jesus was talking about in today’s Gospel passage. We want a certain dance step, but when the music suited for that dance is being played, we refuse to dance. John the Baptist was neither eating nor drinking, many felt he was not normal. Jesus freely ate and drank in public, and people called him a friend of sinners.
As the saying goes: “you will always have an excuse for not doing what you don’t want to do.” If you believe that keeping God’s commandments (living a saintly life) is too hard, then know that you are cheating yourself. God desires our happiness even more than we do. Christmas is a clear proof that God would stop at nothing to ensure our happiness. Nevertheless, this happiness will remain a mirage if we turn a deaf ear to His commands. The wages of sin is death.
Let us Pray: Lord Jesus, deepen my trust in keeping your commandments. Amen. Bible Study: Isaiah 48:17-19, Psalm 1:1-6 and Matthew 11:16-19).
Fr. Abu