God is with us

“God is always given, incarnate in every moment and present to those who know how to be present themselves. It is that simple and that difficult.”

Richard Rohr

The Benedictine motto is, “Seek God.” Yet, if God is always given, we do not need to seek. It’s we who have to learn to be present.  God is always reaching out to us but, most of the time, we seem to have other things on our minds. Even when we are at prayer, we are often thinking about what we have to do later.

God is present in every moment, loving us and caring about each of us, as if we are the only person in the world. That’s what the great teachers tell us. It’s we who have to be open and learn to see God in all the events of our lives.  It is we who have to learn to find God in whatever happens.

It’s easy to do this when good things happen. But, what about the hard things? We might think God is not there, but he is.  He is loving us in the cancer diagnosis, in the car accident, in the unexpected deaths of family members, in the job loss. He helps us cope and begin again, when we think we can’t go on. He gives us strength and perseverance.

God’s love permeates our souls and gets us through the down times we encounter. He is there, even when he seems absent. It is we who have to learn to see him. “It is that simple and that difficult.”