The Freeman

All for God's glory

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DEO omnes gloria! This should be the basic principle to follow in all our thoughts and intentions, our plans and desires, and our actions from the most hidden and personal ones to the most social and global.

Everything comes from him. Everything belongs to him. He is the source of all truth and goodness, the author of the ultimate reality. He should always be in our mind and heart, the beginning and end for everything in our life. Outside of this loop, we would be creating our own ivory tower, our own bubble, our own silo.

That is why St. Paul repeatedly made these reminders: "Whatever you do, work at it with your whole being, for the Lord and not for men, because you know that you will receive an inheritanc­e from the Lord as your reward. It is the Lord Christ you are serving." (Col 3,23-24)

In another occasion, he said: "Whether you eat or drink or whatever you do, do it all for the glory of God." (1 Cor 10,31) And still another: "Whatever you do, whether in word or deed, do it all in the name of the Lord Jesus, giving thanks to God the Father through him." (Col 3,17)

We need to train ourselves to make God the beginning and end, the Alpha and Omega, of all our thoughts, words and deeds. We need to rectify our intentions and keep that rectitude all the way to the consummati­on of those intentions.

This will indeed require a lot of discipline. Very often we are simply dominated by worldly values, like efficiency, profitabil­ity, practicabi­lity, etc., which if not inspired by love for God will always fall short of what is proper to us.

Let us always remember that we are bad in handling good things and other blessings unless they are referred to God. Sooner or later, we will misuse them. And they will eventually spoil and corrupt us. And instead of being their master, we will become their slaves.

That's why Christ clearly told us that if we want to follow him, we have to deny ourselves and carry the cross. (cfr Lk 9,23) This self-denial starts when we pray, since by praying we deny talking with ourselves so that we can converse with God all the time.

When we pray, we somehow get to be in the know of God's plans, his will and ways at all times. Our knowledge of them, mysterious as they are, may not be perfect but at least we get familiar with them, and that would be good enough, for practical purposes.

This is the most ideal situation for us to be in. We just have to try our best that we manage to pray all the time, carrying a running conversati­on with him which is actually the most interestin­g dialogue we could have, for what better, more exciting talk could we have other than that with God?

We should be able to convert everything in our life into means and occasions for prayer, since there's actually no dead spot insofar as our communicat­ion with God is concerned. Even our worst scenario can be a most fertile ground for prayer to gush out.

From there, everything else will be lived with God and for his glory!

‘We should be able to convert everything in our life into means and occasions

for prayer, since there's actually no dead spot insofar as our communicat­ion with

God is concerned.’

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