Without God, everything we do would just be vanity

 

By Fr. Roy Cimagala

Chaplain

Center for Industrial Technology and Enterprise (CITE)

Talamban, Cebu City

Email: roycimagala@gmail.com

INDEED, that is what would surely happen. Without God, despite whatever brilliance and human and worldly success we may manage to achieve through our powers alone, everything would just be an exercise of self-indulgence and vanity that would lead us nowhere other than the ultimate disaster.

That is why Christ tried his best to convince the leading Jews then and now, us, that he comes from God and that he shows us the whole truth about ourselves, the truth that would make us really free, rid of the many subtle and sweet forms of slavery and bondage that we are prone to fall into. (cfr. Jn 8,31-42)

“If you remain in my word, you will truly be my disciples, and you will know the truth, and the truth will set you free,” he said. We really need to train ourselves to have a certain abiding hunger and thirst for Christ, for his word and teaching, because, as he said, that is how we would truly be free.

This training should start as early as possible, right there at home when kids are still kids. They may not understand things yet, but they would eagerly follow what the parents, teachers and elders would teach and show them. And from there, they should be slowly made to understand who they really are and how they should be.

They have to be taught in a gradual but steady way that they, and all of us, are meant to be with God always, to do everything with him and for him, explaining slowly why this is so.

That is why, parents should first be properly taught about this, since they are the first teachers of their children. And they should not be teaching by words only, but also and mainly by deeds and example. The consistency between words and deeds should be made clear for their children to see.

Why do we need to be with God always? The quick answer is because we have been made in God’s image and likeness. We are supposed to share the very life and nature of God, a basic truth about ourselves that indeed is tremendously incredible, but which has to be explained well and inculcated in children’s mind as early as the children are able to understand things.

Without God, we would just be doing things on our own, without the eternal effects that our life and all our deeds ought to have. Our life would simply be of the perishable type, since without God, we would not be able to convert the perishable things in our life into something imperishable. (cfr. 1 Cor 15,53)

Everyone should be made to realize that we need to be with God more than we need air, water and food, which obviously are our necessities. It’s indeed a big challenge to be able to see that truth and to act in accordance with it.

Obviously, this will take a long and even a life-long process that will involve studying and internalizing the truths of our Christian faith, the development of virtues, the recourse to the sacraments and to the means of continuing formation.

There definitely is a need to learn how to pray, how to offer sacrifices, and how to avail of spiritual guidance. The art of spiritual and ascetical struggle should be mastered.

But before anything else, everyone should be made to see and understand why being with God offers us the best life we can have in this world, and why being by ourselves gives us the worst condition in life despite its apparent beauty.