December 3, 2005
How would you feel if God crossed the line and forced you to do His will, thus disrespecting your freewill? You would never forgive Him! Yet, how many times do we pray—even in little ways—that God would disrespect the freewill of others? If we are honest, we must admit that we are all guilty of this from time to time. I call this “pious arm twisting.”
We get mad when God does not answer our prayers in the exact way we want. Thus, some other people never forgive God for refusing to cross freewill. Without realizing what we are doing, it appears that we place God between a rock and a hard place (damned if you do, damned if you don’t). We place Him in a lose-lose situation. He can’t win!
When someone misuses the gift of freewill, why do we blame God for the evil results? I run into this regularly in my priestly ministry. Put another way, the apparent dilemma goes like this, “How can God be all good, all loving and all powerful—yet, allow so much evil in the world?”
Have you ever prayed for a situation that only got worse? What happened? When we are in pain it is difficult to see the solution. We are like the carpenter who curses the hammer after he whacks his own thumb.
The answer is mysteriously simple. Saint Francis loved to contemplate the goodness of God. God is good. Goodness is not a mere attribute of God. Rather, God is good. It is like saying, “Father Luke is a human being.” God is good. All goodness comes from God alone. There is no goodness that does not come from God. If any goodness happens, we only have God to blame. If any evil happens, God is the only one that we can not blame!
Pray for the grace to trust. We may not understand until we get to heaven. Pray for the grace to be okay with that. Remember how our heavenly Father responded to the evil of the crucifixion? The Resurrection of Jesus from the dead was only the first-fruits (see 1 Cor 15:20-24; Romans 8:18 & 28). This means that the fulfillment of Easter awaits us in eternity!
Let us pray for each other,
Fr. Luke Mary Fletcher, CFR
_________________________________________________
www.franciscanfriars.com
comments: fromthefriars@
franciscanfriars.com
