True Faith, Saving Faith!

True faith means fully entrusting one's life to God. No "ifs", no "buts". This is not easy. This is not just saying "I believe." or "I love You, Lord!" It entails the real and actual surrender of the will, mind, memory, and everything held to God. That relationship with God is what will open us up to everything He can do for us. Otherwise, we have made ourselves close and indisposed before God. God can not do anything for us. Yes, that is the "limitation" of God if we can call it as such!

This was clearly shown in the Gospel today, the fourteenth Sunday in Ordinary Time (Year B). Jesus went back to His native place of Nazareth to visit his kinsfolk and also to preach the Good News there. He meant to do everything there including curing the sick and other relevant and necessary miracles. In the beginning, the people were astonished as to what He said. But their familiarity with Him, His parents, and His "brothers" and "sisters" bred contempt! His fellow Nazoreans were blinded by their knowledge of Him and His family. Suddenly they questioned His credibility. They asked how He could say and do all those things! This resulted to their blindness of who He is. Further, it resulted to their lack of faith in Him. The worst consequence was He could not do any more miracles for them save for some! Jesus was amazed at their lack of faith! This is something very big. Jesus amazed? For anyone to amaze Jesus, it must be grand. And this happened in Nazareth. Unfortunately, the amazement was a negative one; lack of faith! Jesus had travelled in so many places and most probably, He had never seen any place with such a lack of faith, in His native place at that!

From Jesus' native place, we shift the focus to our faith. It follows that f God is to be effective in us, we must have that faith in God; it is an entrusting of our lives in the hands of God. In our present situation, are we on that level yet? Had we arrive at a point when it is God who determines everything in our life? Every Sunday, at least, we profess our faith in God, but is it effective and real too in our lives? There was this parishioner who asked his pastor if indeed "Faith moves mountains!". The pastor said "Yes, of course! With God, nothing is impossible for those who have faith!" The parishioner went home and seeing his neighbor's fruit rich mango tree, decided to test his faith. He wanted to move the mango tree from his neighbor's yard to his. So, he concentrated on mustering his faith. He closed his eyes, focused on God and his faith and willed that the mango tree be transferred to his yard. He was perspiring and shaking in concentration. He was praying and uttering words of praise and petition to God. He was summoning his great faith in God that the mango tree will be moved to his place. When he was certain he had arrived at perfect expression of faith, he slowly opened his eyes to see the result. Lo and behold! The mango tree was still in his neighbor's yard! It remained where it was! Then he said to himself, "I thought so!" ("Sabi ko na nga ba eh!"). 

All along he doubted God. All along, he was lacking in faith! The promised miracle did not happen. The miracle will not happen because there was lack of faith. We have to admit that this had happened to us a lot of times. We believed we have that full faith. We apply it to our lives. And when it did not or nothing happened, we say, "I thought so!" or similar words of doubt all along. The so called "limitation" of God was not really about Him not being able to do what He wanted to do but about us not allowing Him to do it to us. God always invites in love and man must respond in faith. Without that faith-response, there is no communication with God. Without the faith response, God's graces could not be received. In all the miracles of Jesus, Jesus would always ask the person if he has faith in Him or Jesus would praise the person for having faith.

Hopefully, next time, Jesus would still be amazed not because of our lack of faith but because of the fullness of our faith. Not because He would be able to do all the miracles we need, but that the main grace of salvation will be received by everyone. What greater miracle is there than the miracle of being saved! And what greater event would there be than receiving that miracle of salvation!