Our need for God is constant and indispensable

By Fr. Roy Cimagala

Chaplain

Center for Industrial Technology and Enterprise (CITE)

Talamban, Cebu City

Email: roycimagala@gmail.com

IT’S the most basic need we have, since God is and should be everything to us. Our need for him is much more than our need for air, food, etc. Without him, we can only go nowhere, and worse, the animal part of our humanity takes over, and we know what that means.

It’s amazing that many popular love songs today regard the human objects of the lovers as everything to them. “You’re my everything” goes one title of such songs. Lines like “You give me strength when I am weak,” “You are the light that guides me in the dark,” “You are my inspiration in my moments of dryness,” etc. abound in such songs.

We, of course, can take those expressions with a grain of salt. They can even be legitimately used by us but referring them to the One who really matters in our life, and that is God.

The challenge for us is how to develop that sense of our constant need for God. We cannot deny that even if we are not afflicted with serious illnesses and problems, we always have with us our own load of weaknesses, we always have to contend with all sorts of temptations and sins around.

We may not be doing anything really wrong, but we cannot deny that very often we get caught in the grip of laziness, disorder, complacency and lukewarmness that sooner or later develop into something bigger and more deceptive as when we develop a hidden addiction to drinks, drugs, pornography, etc.

The challenge is how to make us feel that our greatest need is, in fact, God whom we ought to love first and last. He is the greatest good that we can aim at, infinitely better than any earthly good we can find in ourselves and in the world. 

That is why Christ, when asked what the greatest commandment was, simply said that it is to “love the Lord your God with all your heart, with all your soul, with all your mind, and with all your strength.” (Mt 12,29)

God should be first, last and always in our life. Everything else should just be an occasion, a means, an instrument and reason to fulfill that need of ours. Let’s consider these words from the Book of Deuteronomy:

“Love the Lord thy God, and walk in his ways, and keep his commandments and ceremonies and judgments, and you may live, and he may multiply you, and bless you in the land, which you shall go in to possess.” (30,16)

And it continues to tell us what would happen if we fail in fulfilling this duty: “But if your heart is turned away, so that you will not hear, and being deceived with error you adore a strange god, and serve them: I foretell this day you shall perish…” (30,17)

Let’s never forget that we are meant to be always with God. Our life, given the way we have been created, cannot but be a sharing in God’s life and nature. To stay away from him would be a fundamental anomaly that would have bad consequences for everything else in our life.

We should therefore give priority to our spiritual needs of prayer, recourse to the sacraments, development of virtues, the habit of having the presence of God always, doing everything with God and for God, etc.

When we feel the sting of our weaknesses, and much more so, when we are assailed by persistent temptations, we should beg God for help. He is always around and is most eager to help. Things would just depend on how strong our faith in him is.