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Got Plans? No, God Plans

By Gabe Garnica

 

 

hand of Christ

“For I know the plans that I have for you,” declares the LORD, “plans for welfare and not for calamity to give you a future and a hope.” Jeremiah 29:11

I once saw a painting of a man throwing his hands up in despair, eyes fixed on the sky in a mix of supplication and frustration. The image was jarring if only because it demonstrated the irony of faith.  On one hand, one demonstrates faith in believing that God can reach out and help.  On the other hand, however, that very same faith is immediately tested when God seems not to reach out at all, at least to one’s perception, expectation, and satisfaction.

The one who has no faith in God does not bother to even ask for help from Someone whose very existence is deemed a fanciful myth.  Such a person ultimately claims to have faith only in himself, and not much faith in anything else.  Eventually, such thinking ends in the total despair of firmly grasping on a falling tree limb.

The reach of Christ is an invitation to release that limb, either before it falls or, just as significantly, after.  Releasing the limb before its fall is the admission that the limb is a pathetic substitute for the firm grasp of a loving God.  Conversely, releasing it just after the fall is the admission that, when all else is lost, there will  still be a loving God’s reach.

The proud embrace their limb all the way down to the darkness of their own self-obsession.  The doubting face a worse fate, holding the falling limb with one hand while waving a questioning, free hand that is anything but free, trapped in its own ambivalence.

Divine Mercy is the promise that God’s reach will far outreach one’s own, so mired as it will usually be by a mixture of guilt, doubt, pride, and a desire for self-punishment.  We all grasp that limb for all of these reasons, yet God’s love constantly invites us to let go and grasp His Hand instead.

Even when we do reach out, do we hesitate as Peter did in the sea or do we go all in? Do we see God’s answer as our own, or are we truly open to let God answer our prayers His way?

Ultimately, faith is all about trusting that, regardless of how bleak and pathetic things may seem to us, God has a plan for us.  It is believing that we will get lost as God offers a roadmap back home. It is closing one’s eyes to the marketing of this world’s values and walking in God’s path as best we can.  Ironically, it is refusing to embrace the highs and the lows of this world too tightly, knowing that they merely represent the waves of a sea that only God can calm.

People constantly ask us if we have plans, for the summer, for the fall, for the holidays, for next year, and for the rest of our lives.  More and more, the closer we get to  God, the more our answer should be “Yes, but God is the one who has them.”

2016,  Gabriel Garnica

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Read all posts by Gabe Garnica Filed Under: Culture, Evangelization, Prayer, Scripture, Spiritual Warfare Tagged With: Divine Mercy, faith, Jeremiah

About Gabe Garnica

Gabriel Garnica is crazy enough to believe that we can all be saints, and he refuses to buy the lie that we cannot. He is a college professor with degrees in law and mental health counseling. He was born in Colombia and came to the U.S. as a young child. While Gabe continues to enjoy teaching law, his greatest fulfillment as an educator has come from his ten years as a catechist at two local parishes. Gabe is passionate about sharing his faith through writing and speaking; and he has enjoyed giving numerous talks to children on such topics as Divine Mercy, David and Goliath, The Ten Commandments, and prioritizing one’s faith. While he enjoys talking to children, it is in writing and speaking to adults that Gabe truly feels he has found his calling. His goal is to continue developing his Catholic speaking and write several books on his topics of interest, which include meditations on the Ten Commandments, Divine Mercy, the saints, parable stories, general Scripture, Pro-Life, and The Virgin Mary. He enjoys writing for his blog Deus solus https://wordpress.com/posts/deussolus9.wordpress.com and as a columnist at Catholic Stand ww.catholicstand.com/author/gabriel-garnica/

Gabe’s favorite saints are Tarcisius, Therese “The Little Flower”, and Alphonsus de Liguori, whom he describes as giving us a powerful glimpse of the loving challenge which God has given each of us. As mentioned above, Gabe believes that we are all called to be saints, but we spend more time convincing ourselves why we cannot become one than trying to fulfill our true purpose in becoming precisely that. Gabe also speaks about Catholic marriage as being the true “Love Triangle”, with each partner and God.

Comments

  1. Patrick O'Hannigan says

    August 26, 2016 at 12:35 pm

    Some great reminders in this piece. Might also be a missing word, though, when you’re talking about what faith is: “…faith is all about trusting that, regardless of how bleak and pathetic things may seem to us, God has a plan for us. It is believing that we will get lost as God offers a roadmap back home.”

    I’m thinking that on those terms, faith is believing that we will NOT get lost as God offers a roadmap back home. The tough part, sometimes, is remembering that we have that roadmap.

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