Courage and endurance are two things that we need to sustain our lives as human beings. When we lose our courage we get frustrated, disappointed and depressed. But the truth is that in our real-life situations, we often have instant courage.
This is nothing to be surprised by as we live in a world where people expect instant answers and solutions for all their life issues. In the recent past, I have observed this instance of courage on many occasions. For instance, when their children were arrested many parents had instance courage. But gradually they got frustrated and lost their hopes.
Here we see that we need endurance to sustain this instant courage. Endurance is something we really need to sustain our lives in all spheres of life. Today we are called to have courage to endure in order to stir up our faith.
As human beings, we are concerned about the beginning and the end. That’s why we take births and deaths very seriously. Also, we don’t forget the middle: the marriage. But very often we forget the in-between.
For instance, when we enrol ourselves to do an examination we have trouble starting the programme. We are concerned about the end results. In between very often, we feel frustrated, lazy or tired. This is true of our Christian life and faith as well.
We are concerned about the birth of Jesus and his last coming. We of course take his death and resurrection seriously. But what about the in-between? You would have noticed that in the recent past, some Christians have been over-emphasizing the 2nd coming of Jesus. This is called eschatology or last things. Yes, we should be concerned about this, but we are not called to do this by neglecting other responsibilities. According to the New Testament in the Bible In the church at Thessalonica, there were people who did not do any work and just waited for the 2 coming of Jesus. Paul rebuked them and asked them to do a job.
In the Gospel of St. Luke in the Bible, we are told that when we experience wars and nations against nations don’t assume that the end is near. The writer has said that these things will happen before the end. Till the end, we have to get involved in the activities of the kingdom of God.
Once Jesus said that even he didn’t know the time and date of the 2nd coming. Only God knows. Therefore it is not our responsibility to calculate this date. It is the business of God.
It is our responsibility to do God’s will as God’s children. If we are involved in God’s activities it is not a concern for us to be worried about the 2nd coming of Jesus. Because when he comes we will be ready to welcome him.
Therefore let us prepare ourselves to accept his 2nd coming; not calculating days but by becoming active members of God’s kingdom here and now.
Let’s ask God to give us his grace to be active members of his kingdom here and now.
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