Be watchful! Be alert!
Watch, therefore;
What I say to you, I say to all: ‘Watch!’”
We are invited to be ready for unexpected encounters with Jesus. He warns us again about our tendency to fall asleep. The anxieties of life become genuine problems when we stop watching for Jesus because of them. We are tempted to protest:
Why do you let us wander, O LORD, from your ways,
and harden our hearts so that we fear you not?
But it isn't that he let's us wander. We are placed in charge in various ways and degrees, "each with his own work". But we must all be alert. God does not harden our hearts. But if we wander and lose ourselves our hearts do harden. Over and above the work which can consume us we must keep watch.
We can let ourselves get so wrapped up that we forget the mission. We must not forget that Jesus is the master. He owns the vineyard. Our talents are gifts we use for him. Jesus "places his servants in charge" so that they may grow to be more like him. But just as Jesus never forgets that everything he has is from the Father so too must we remember that every blessing we have is from Jesus.
in him you were enriched in every way,
with all discourse and all knowledge,
as the testimony to Christ was confirmed among you,
so that you are not lacking in any spiritual gift
He is helping us grow, "until we all attain to the unity of the faith, and of the knowledge of the Son of God, to a mature man, to the measure of the stature which belongs to the fullness of Christ" (cf. Eph. 4:13).
Jesus has much which, in human terms, the Father does not do for him. Yet not for one minute does he take the mission into his own hands. In every moment he is open to the Father's will. Because this is so he never misses the guidance and blessings that the Father always pours out upon him.
We need to move from a posture of passive waiting to one of active waiting. We need a spirit which cries out "Oh, that you would rend the heavens and come down". We need our prayer to be, "Lord, make us turn to you; let us see your face and we shall be saved." In other words, let us hasten his coming by fervent desire! Is our desire weak? We need to feed it with hope!
No ear has ever heard, no eye ever seen, any God but you
doing such deeds for those who wait for him.
Right when we are tempted to got lost and wander in our own work we need to remember that God is working within us. He is forming us into the people he wants us to be.
Yet, O LORD, you are our father;
we are the clay and you the potter:
we are all the work of your hands.
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