August 16, 2020

“O woman, great is your faith.” (Matthew 15:28a)

Why is God so stubborn? It is a question many of us have entertained at one time or another. There are those times when we have felt that God is downright obstinate and seems to be cold, indifferent, insulated, or unrelated to our aches and agonies. God not only allows us to get into complexities and entanglements we have no intention or desire to get into, but God appears at times to be totally oblivious to our struggles and conflicts. We agree that God is in heaven – lest one be accused of blasphemy or heresy – but there are occasions when God seems to have abdicated our chaotic world.

Why is God so stubborn? Perhaps it is because God loves us too much that God insists on giving us the very best in life. There are times when the only way God has of introducing us to the best is to allow us to prick ourselves on the thorny bushes of this existence, or run amok in its blind allies and dead-end streets, or flail helplessly on its quicksands of disillusionment and disaster. When we desperately long for deliverance, as did the Canaanite woman in our Gospel Lesson for August 16, we have taken the initial step in preparing the way for God to grant the miracle of sufficient grace to bear our afflictions or to live fruitfully and effectively with our problems.

It is not enough that we bring our problems to God. We must bring ourselves to God – yield to God the reins of our lives, place before God all that we have. Then miracles can begin to happen in our lives.

May God pull us out of our swamps of self-pity and depression and teach us how to cope with the struggles and conflicts that we encounter and deal with day by day.