We all do it. We compare ourselves to others. We envy those who seem more blessed and count ourselves better than those who seem less so. Why do we get this way? We start thinking that we've earned something. We become proud of our supposed hard work. Yet salvation is "not by works, so that no one can boast" (cf. Eph 2:9). When we look back on our struggles do we see them as God triumphing over our resistance to him? Or do we misunderstand? Do we think that we did something on our own? He says, "apart from me you can do nothing" (cf. Joh. 15:5).
‘My friend, I am not cheating you.
Did you not agree with me for the usual daily wage?
Take what is yours and go.
Perhaps wage was never the right way to look at it. After all, "the wages of sin is death, but the gift of God is eternal life in Christ Jesus our Lord" (cf. Rom. 6:23). Whether we follow him from birth, indeed from the womb, like Mary and John Baptist, or whether we come to him in our last moments like penitent thief on the cross we all hear the same promise, "Amen, I say to you, today you will be with me in paradise" (cf. Lul. 23:43). We may have to go through more purification to receive this gift because we still lack the holiness without which no one will see God (cf. Heb. 12:14). But God's love is a consuming fire. As we enter into his atmosphere his love will consume our impurities.
Woe to the shepherds of Israel
who have been pasturing themselves!
We need to take a different approach to the tasks to which God calls us. We might not have a whole flock. But we all have sheep that we need to look after. We all have family and friends. We want to ensure that they are not lost, that they are well fed, that the pastures in which they wander are verdant. We need to remember that these sheep are ours only secondarily. They belong first to the LORD.
For thus says the Lord GOD:
I myself will look after and tend my sheep.
His concern for them is greater than ours. If we look after these sheep apart from the chief shepherd we will quickly become tired. As we work hard on our own we will not experience the love of God for his sheep as our driving force. But it is meant to be just that. Without him we do end up trying to pasture ourselves, to protect ourselves, to comfort ourselves, rather than loving those with whose care we have been entrusted.
What if I wish to give this last one the same as you?
Or am I not free to do as I wish with my own money?
Are you envious because I am generous?’
Thus, the last will be first, and the first will be last.”
We become jealous of the very love we give, thinking that we ourselves are receiving less and being cheated. Yet we are both sheep in the LORD's pasture. He tends us both. The wages he ultimately pays us are the same. These are the wages of love.
Only goodness and kindness will follow me
all the days of my life;
And I shall dwell in the house of the LORD
for years to come.
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