Use It or Lose It

23. August 2012 · Write a comment · Categories: Reflections

Use well what has been given to you

Each of us has been granted two lives, one mortal and the other immortal, granted to us as gifts by our Creator. Our physical human life exists but briefly in the eternity that is God; our ethereal soul exists forever. We cannot exist without the grace and love of God; we cannot create our own lives, we cannot achieve immortality on our own.

We were created out of an infinite desire to be loved by God who is Love; He needs to love and to be loved in return and so He has created us in His image and likeness, to love Him and to be loved by Him. He loves us purely and unconditionally. He deserves our love in return but does not demand or require that we do so. We are created by Him but are free to believe otherwise, free to turn away from Him, free to proclaim, as Lucifer once did, that we are more powerful, more knowing, more important. God cares deeply for all of His creation but will not prevent us from acting foolishly; He gave us free will.

Our primordial parents, Adam and Eve, were created and given everything by God. They were forbidden nothing except the fruit of the tree. They had unlimited, direct contact with God, who had created them and gifted them with all that He had created with that singular exception. And yet they wanted more; they desired what they had been denied; they craved what had been forbidden them. They had it all and lost it all because of their insatiable desire for more.

And so it continues…

God has given each of us everything that we need and yet we want more. We desire what we believe has been denied to us. We crave that which has been forbidden. After all, we are number one!

God has given each of us an abundance of gifts, talents and treasure, and He wants us to use them, not hoard them. Jesus tells us “For to everyone who has, more shall be given, and he will have an abundance; but from the one who does not have, even what he does have shall be taken away” [Mt 25:29].

At first blush this may appear to be promoting the accumulation of treasure. But that is not what Jesus is telling us. He is really telling us that for those who use well all that they have been given, even more will be given, but for those who do nothing with their God given gifts, it will all be taken away.

In other words, use it or lose it.

About the author: Deacon Chuck

Deacon Chuck was ordained into the permanent diaconate on September 17, 2011, in the ministry of service to the Diocese of Reno and assigned to St. Albert the Great Catholic Community. He currently serves as the parish bulletin editor and website administrator. Deacon Chuck continues to serve the parish of Saint Albert the Great Catholic Community of the Diocese of Reno, Nevada. He is the Director of Adult Faith Formation and Homebound Ministries for the parish, conducts frequent adult faith formation workshops, and is a regular homilist. He currently serves as the bulletin editor for the parish bulletin. He writes a weekly column intended to encompass a broad landscape of thoughts and ideas on matters of theology, faith, morals, teachings of the magisterium and the Catholic Church; they are meant to illuminate, illustrate, and catechize the readers and now number more than 230 articles. His latest endeavor is "Colloqui: A journal for restless minds", a weekly journal of about 8 pages similar in content to bulletin reflections. All his reflections, homilies, commentaries, and Colloqui are posted and can be found on his website: http://deaconscorner.org. Comments are always welcome and appreciated. He is the author of two books: "The Voices of God: hearing God in the silence" which offers the reader insights into how to hear God’s voice through all of the noise that surrounds us; and "Echoes of Love: Effervescent Memories" which through a combination of prose and verse provides the reader with a wonderful journey on the way to discovering forever love. He regularly speaks to groups of all ages and size and would welcome the opportunity to speak to your group.

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