December 7: Relationship Will Change Us

Jeremiah 12:1–13:27; Philemon 1:8–25; Proverbs 14:15–35

Although God has granted us complete access to Him through Christ, we struggle at times to live this reality (John 17:15–17). The stale or frightening depictions of God in stained glass and Renaissance paintings have convinced us that He is distant, quick to anger, or disinterested. Nothing could be further from the truth; the Psalms remind us that He is caring, close, and listening (e.g., Pss 22; 23; 26), and He yearns for a relationship with us.

Sometimes it helps to hear the words of others who have struggled with the same thing. Jeremiah provides us with such an example. He remarks, “You will be in the right, O Yahweh, when I complain to you. Even so, let me speak my claims with you. Why does the way of the wicked succeed? All those who deal treacherously with treachery are at ease” (Jer 12:1). Jeremiah knows that Yahweh is right in all He does, but this does not prevent him from freely expressing his concerns.

If we really look into our hearts, we may find that fear is preventing us from entering into an intimate relationship with Him. We’re afraid of what He will say; we’re concerned that He may rebuke us. Indeed, this is what He does when Jeremiah speaks to Him: “If you run with foot soldiers and they have made you weary, then how will you compete with horses? If you have fallen in a peaceful land, then how will you do in the thickets of the Jordan? For even your relatives, and the house of your father, even they have dealt treacherously with you, even they call loudly after you. You must not trust in them, though they speak kindly to you” (Jer 12:5–6). Yet within this rebuke, we also find advice—and the advice is comforting. By openly communicating his concerns to God, Jeremiah now knows what he must do. He knows how he must act.

There is joy to be found in knowing that we have a God who listens—a God who is not offended when we speak to Him but is eager for our company. What are we afraid of? After all, He already knows what’s on our minds. We need to grasp the idea that God is all about relationship.

What would change about your life if you went deeper into your relationship with Christ? What should you be asking God right now?

John D. Barry

 Barry, J. D. – Kruyswijk, R., Connect the Testaments: A One-Year Daily Devotional with Bible Reading Plan (Bellingham, WA 2012).

December 7

Our faith and our love are ever incomplete as long as we walk this earth, and they are constantly threatened with extinction. For this is in truth the time of Advent. Nobody can claim, “I am redeemed once and for all.” In this temporal world we do not find redemption as a completed fact of the past, nor redemption as a completed, final fact of the present; rather, redemption is found only in the manner of hope. God’s light illuminated this world in no other way than in the lights of hope, put by his loving kindness as guides on our way. How often are we saddened by this: we long for more, we desire the full, complete, incontestable reality here and now. And yet, in the end we have to admit—could there be a way of redemption more appropriate than the one telling us, who are ever becoming and on our way, that we have reason to hope? Could there be a better guiding light for us, who are ever pilgrims, than the one that sets us free to step ahead without fear, because we know, at the end of the journey, there waits the light of an eternal love? Formerly on the Ember Wednesday in Advent we found in the liturgy of the Mass precisely this mystery of hope. The Church on this day presented it to us in the person of the Mother of the Lord, the Holy Virgin Mary. In these weeks of Advent she stands before us as the woman who carries the hope of the world in her womb and thus walks ahead of us on our way as the sign of hope. She stands before us as the woman in whom the humanly impossible has been made possible through God’s saving mercy. And thus she becomes a sign for us all. For relying solely on ourselves, on the meager flame of our good will and the wretchedness of our deeds, we will not achieve salvation. This is utterly insufficient. It is impossible. Yet God, in his mercy, has made possible the impossible. We only have to say, in complete humility, “Behold, I am a servant of the Lord” (cf. Lk 2:37f., Mk 10:27).

From: Vom Sinn des Christseins, pp. 69f.

 Ratzinger, J., Co-Workers of the Truth: Meditations for Every Day of the Year (ed. I. Grassl) (San Francisco 1992) 385-386.