Surrendering at any age is difficult to say the least! You have your pride, and your iron will to contend with in your youth. Then as you age you have set ways and comfort zones. As you become old, you have physical and mental limitations. But why must it be so difficult when the person you are surrendering to is Your creator who loves you beyond measure? It is not like you have anything to lose but rather have everything to gain.
Perhaps the question is really about how intimate are you in your relationship with the Lord Your God? What faith and trust do you have in Him? Do you not marvel at the faith and trust Abram had in the Lord His God at seventy-five?!
Recently I was heartbroken to see the changes that had taken place in the ministry I had served in, years ago. The members now seem aloof, cold and simply carrying out their duty like robotic dispensers! Today’s Gospel reminds that I should not judge, no matter how sad and sorry it looks. My only job is to glorify the Lord by my own life and the way I lead it for His greater glory. He will make crooked lines straight in His own time.
Forgive me Lord and help me see everyone through Your loving eyes. Amen
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First reading
Genesis 12:1-9 ·
‘Leave your country, your family, and your father’s house’
The Lord said to Abram, ‘Leave your country, your family and your father’s house, for the land I will show you. I will make you a great nation; I will bless you and make your name so famous that it will be used as a blessing.
‘I will bless those who bless you:
I will curse those who slight you.
All the tribes of the earth
shall bless themselves by you.’
So Abram went as the Lord told him, and Lot went with him. Abram was seventy-five years old when he left Haran. Abram took his wife Sarai, his nephew Lot, all the possessions they had amassed and the people they had acquired in Haran. They set off for the land of Canaan, and arrived there.
Abram passed through the land as far as Shechem’s holy place, the Oak of Moreh. At that time the Canaanites were in the land. The Lord appeared to Abram and said, ‘It is to your descendants that I will give this land.’ So Abram built there an altar for the Lord who had appeared to him. From there he moved on to the mountainous district east of Bethel, where he pitched his tent, with Bethel to the west and Ai to the east. There he built an altar to the Lord and invoked the name of the Lord. Then Abram made his way stage by stage to the Negeb.
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Gospel
Matthew 7:1-5
Do not judge, and you will not be judged
Jesus said to his disciples: ‘Do not judge, and you will not be judged; because the judgements you give are the judgements you will get, and the amount you measure out is the amount you will be given. Why do you observe the splinter in your brother’s eye and never notice the plank in your own? How dare you say to your brother, “Let me take the splinter out of your eye,” when all the time there is a plank in your own? Hypocrite! Take the plank out of your own eye first, and then you will see clearly enough to take the splinter out of your brother’s eye.’
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