The Greatest Love of All

 
A man asked Jesus, “How Much Do You Love Me?“, and Jesus stretched his arms and said, “This much!!!“.

Footprints in the Sand

One night a man had a dream. He dreamed
he was walking along the beach with the LORD.
Across the sky flashed scenes from his life.
For each scene he noticed two sets of
footprints in the sand: one belonging
to him, and the other to the LORD.

When the last scene of his life flashed before him,
he looked back at the footprints in the sand.

He noticed that many times along the path of
his life there was only one set of footprints.

He also noticed that it happened at the very
lowest and saddest times in his life.

This really bothered him and he
questioned the LORD about it:

“LORD, you said that once I decided to follow
you, you’d walk with me all the way.
But I have noticed that during the most
troublesome times in my life,
there is only one set of footprints.
I don’t understand why when
I needed you most you would leave me.”

The LORD replied:

“My son, my precious child,
I love you and I would never leave you.
During your times of trial and suffering,
when you see only one set of footprints,
it was then that I carried you.”

THE MYSTERY OF GOD AND THE FAITH
(A Reflection on the ‘Human Person and Absolute’)

Bertrand Russell, an atheist, once said, “Unless you assume a God, the question of life’s purpose is meaningless.”
Throughout our life, we incessantly search for meanings. We question the meaning of everything especially the meaning of our own existence. In our quest for meaning, we realize that we are just finite beings and not capable of our own existence. Unless we find our origin, our quest will never be meaningful. We attribute then our origin to a Transcendent Being who is beyond our humanity.

They say that we, human persons, are religious beings by nature. All of us have the inkling to know Someone Who is Transcendent to us. We call this Transcendent Being in different names such as God, the Absolute, the Supreme Being, the One, etc. This truth is very evident in the world. In every corner of this planet, even in the remotest tribe, people assume a Being who is beyond all things. Even the atheists who deny the existence of God cannot deny the idea of God, for how can they deny something that they do not know?

Human person’s quest for meaning for Being is forever, for no one can know the totality of reality. It is a fact that there are things that are so rich that will remain veiled to us all. We call them, “mysteries.”

The mystery of God is one of the greatest mysteries if not the greatest mystery in this world. People are perennially searching into the true nature of God but they come up incomplete and dissatisfied. Does God hide Himself?

The thrill of life is in its mysteries. As Antoine de Saint-Exupery had written in his book Little Prince, “The desert is beautiful because somewhere there is a well that is hidden.” When we already know all about the reality that there is no more left to exhaust, there is no more excitement to live life. Therefore, all we can do is to succumb to life’s mysteries.

We surrender to the great mystery of God by the act of believing which we call, “faith.” Faith is our ultimate response to the mystery of God. As Gabriel Marcel said, “Faith is a gift, a call, to which I am free to respond and yet demands of me to respond.” God somehow hides Himself but He gave us something we could use to somehow know Him—faith. Faith is a gift that we are free to accept or to reject. The acceptance of this gift entails a responsibility to the receiver to take care of it and to share it with others.

Why does God somehow hide Himself to us? Perhaps, it is for the reason that we must seek for Him. Because if God were very evident to us, we would only take Him for granted; He would just be subject of oblivion. It is really a great challenge for us to search for God and eventually to know Him. To know God is really difficult; but if we truly yearn for Him, we would do our best to know Him. It truly takes a great amount of perseverance, dedication and sacrifice. Great things are not so easy to achieve but their reward are fulfilling. Unless we have a God in our lives, we cannot find the meaning or the purpose of our existence.

DOES GOD HIDE HIMSELF?
(A Reflection on the Philosphy of Religion)

It is a fact that there are things that are so rich that will remain veiled to us all. We call them, “mysteries.” I do believe that the thrill of life is in its mysteries. What really gives chill to life is that we are not certain of something but we still take the risk to believe. As Antoine de Saint-Exupery had written in his book The Little Prince, “The desert is beautiful because somewhere there is a well that is hidden.”

The mystery of God is one of the greatest mysteries if not the greatest mystery in this world. People are perennially searching into the true nature of God, but they always come up incomplete and dissatisfied in the end. In fact, some people turn out be non-believers of God for they cannot verify His existence and just decide to ignore Him in the end.

Because the reality of God is so rich that it surpasses our understanding, we surrender to this great mystery by the act of believing which we call, “faith.” Faith is our ultimate response to the mystery of God. Faith is a gift that we are free to accept or to reject; so it is a fact that some of us believe and some of us do not believe in God’s existence. Because God is not self-evident, for us who believe, there is always a room for doubt in what we believe especially when it seems that God totally hides Himself from us. These are the times when God seems to be so distant or abandoned us in our journey because of our pains, trials, desperations and problems in life. However, these moments of doubt or what we call “unbelief” must serve as our driving force to search for Him more.

To conclude, I ask, “Does God really hide himself from us?” In my own reflection, YES, God seems to hide himself from us. Why? Perhaps, it is for the very reason that we must seek for Him. Because if God were very evident to us, we would only take Him for granted, for to know Him is just as easy as taking a candy from a baby; He would just be then a subject of oblivion. It is really a great challenge for us to search for God and eventually to know Him. To know God is difficult and our lifetime may not be enough to know Him. However, if we truly yearn for Him, we would do our best to search for Him even when the time comes that the worst typhoon would storm our life. To hold on to what we believe, that is, God exists, truly takes a great amount of perseverance, dedication, commitment and sacrifice. We must remember that great things are not so easy to achieve but their rewards are fulfilling in the end, so is in searching for God.