The hour of professing

By Sandzcmf

May 6, 2013

“… The hour is coming when anyone who kills you will claim to be serving God…” (John 16:3)

Back in the novitiate, when the days are spent with ideal works and noble dispositions; where the scenery of hills-touching-the-sky gives you the natural wonders of God’s creation; when the camaraderie of people starts to haunt your silence; and where you can deeply say, “I’ve put my blood into this,” it’s in the first profession that you recall all your stumbling moments together with the “get-up!” occasions.

I have met my “giants” before I finally professed a year ago. And these “giants” were terrible. I sought preferences and ways to either face and defeat them or just plainly escape from them. They were too scary and frightening! They made me feel so little before the eyes of the people I dear to love. They depleted from me my self-worth and self-esteem.

And worst, they took away my heavenward gaze to the One who called me…

“… The hour is coming when anyone who kills you will claim to be serving God…”

Yes, those “giants” tried to kill me. As if I was mumbling to death, I could hear loud and clear their convincing tunes: “You’re not worthy for that… look at the mess you have done… your past determines your present and who you will become, etc…”

I almost die there. I wanted to give up. The weaknesses, the sins, the regrets, the fear, the dreams fading away, and the love so uncertain – they were all given by the “giants.”

But this day, as we celebrate our first year anniversary of our temporal profession to the congregation, I can only take a glimpse from those “giants.” The gaze is more to the One who loved me first. The focus is more on being blessed by the One who don’t punish me whenever I sinned against my neighbor or directly to Him. The push is more to the Father who made it clear to me that my problems are no match to His power.

I just thought I was on the verge of going away. The thoughts claimed they are from God. But they aren’t. Whenever I go farther from Him, the more He opens his arms for me to feel the warmth of His love.

When I got professed, He still blessed me though He knows I’ll be doing something else unfitting to this kind of life. But why did He do that anyway?

Call it foolishness or madness… but that’s how much He wants me to be with him, always. “I tell you all this to keep you from stumbling and falling away…” (John 16:2)