Finding God in all things and staying strong in faith

Pastor’s Notes

ReveRend Rodel G. BalaGtas

IF God loves us, why is there so much suffering in the world?” a teenager asked her church’s youth minister. Not giving the young person a direct answer, the youth minister shared with her a motto he learned from St. Ignatius of Loyola and his companions — the Jesuits. “We’ve got to find God in all things,” he responded, “even in our sufferings and imperfect world.” Then he went on telling the young woman his experience of God’s love and faith in Him despite the troubles and pains of life.

“Finding God in all things” might be the lesson we must learn and practice daily. It’s a lesson grounded in the conviction that God is active in the world. He does not abandon us despite our problems and difficulties. He urges us to trust him and believe in his love and power to rescue us from fears and anxieties. This Sunday’s (August 13) Gospel (Matthew 14:22-23) is about the need to trust God and to have the courage to rise above the storms of life. The passage describes the event when Jesus made the disciples get into a boat and go ahead of him to the other side of the lake while he went up to a mountainside to pray. Later in the night, the waves battered the disciples’ boat because of strong winds. Then, Jesus, walking on the water, came toward them and reassured them, saying, “Take courage! It is I. Do not be afraid.”

Yes, my friends, God’s call and challenge to us is to find Him and trust Him in all life circumstances. It’s to hear His whisper of abiding love and peace, which we often can listen to in the silence of our hearts and times of solitude and prayer—the discipline Jesus would model to his disciples