WHO IS YOUR MASTER?
What can you and I do to protect
ourselves from anxiety?
Who is the master
in charge of your life? Our "master" is whatever governs our
thoughts, shapes our ideals, and controls the desires of our heart and the
values we choose to live by. We can be ruled by many different things. For
example, the love of money, possessions, power and prestige, glamour of wealth,
even harmful passions and addictions. Ultimately, the choice of deciding who
our master is boils down to two: God or "mammon" - material wealth or
possessions or whatever tends to control our desires.
There is only one
Master Who has the power to set us free from fear, pride, greed and many other
hurtful desires in life. That Master, of course, is Jesus Christ, Who alone can
save us from all that would keep us bound up in fear and anxiety. Jesus used an
illustration from nature in today's Gospel - birds and flowers - to show how
our heavenly Father provides for His creatures in the natural order of
creation. God provides ample food, water, light and heat to sustain all that
lives. How much more can we, who are created in the very image and likeness of
God, rely on Him to sustain not only our physical body, but our mind, heart and
spirit as well?
Our heavenly Father
is utterly reliable because it is in His nature to love, heal, forgive, and
bring us to holiness. Let us remember that Jesus taught us how to pray with
loving confidence, "Give us this day our daily bread." God knows our
needs even before we ask, and generously blesses those who trust in Him. In the
Responsorial Psalm, we affirm that our souls find "rest in God
alone," for the Lord is worthy of our trust (Ps 62:6a). The Lord never
forgets; the Lord is our Rock and our Salvation. He is our Refuge, our Judge,
our Light, our Master, and the Provider of all things.
Here are questions
to pray and ponder on today: How anxious are you about God's plans for your
life? What can you and I do to protect ourselves from anxiety?
Who is your master?