But one by one, they all began to excuse themselves.
What priority do we give the the Kingdom of God in our lives? Do we choose to do everything else first and then fit God in to whatever we have leftover? Does our work or our relationships take precedence over serving God? If we seem to be lacking time for God is it because we don't accept his invitation to come to him? Work and relationships has a legitimate and important place in our lives. But everything needs to be oriented toward the kingdom. The work we do with oxen or with our fields is to support us as we journey toward the Kingdom of God. The women or men we marry are meant to accompany us on that journey. Nothing can be allowed to become an excuse to do something separately apart from the overarching goal of the kingdom.
I ask you, consider me excused.
Rather than making excuses, we should consider our own susceptibility to these temptations. We feel the tyranny of the urgent and so we need to respond the way God wants us to respond. We need to request from him the grace we need to put him first no matter what else is going on in our lives.
Do not grow slack in zeal,
be fervent in spirit,
serve the Lord.
Rejoice in hope,
endure in affliction,
persevere in prayer.
We have so many gifts. But they are meant to be at the service of one another. We are meant to all be part of one Body in Christ. We are given grace to sincerely love, to hate evil, to hold on the the good, and to love with mutual affection. We can't do this effectively when our own stuff separates us from God and his body. When we are moving not toward the feast but away from it we are not using any of the graces we are given as they are meant to be used. God wants to draw us all together toward him. To let him do so we must give him our whole lives. We must offer back any graces we receive.
O Israel, hope in the LORD,
both now and forever.
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