The Hopeful Man Trusts in God, Not Man
man, where is your heaven?
- by Chris Fernandez
Men, where is your heaven? Examine your goals, your desires – what do you pursue? What you pursue is what you are attached to, what you seek to find your satisfaction in. Do you pursue an eternity of communion with the Trinity in Heaven, or something else?
Maybe the pursuit of heaven is a goal among several, maybe it is even the primary goal of your life – is that enough? Christ Himself declared that the greatest commandment is that “You shall love the Lord, your God, with all your heart, with all your soul, and with all your mind” (Matthew 22: 37). All. Not some. Not most. All.
If you set your heart upon the Lord and heaven, will the Lord, who holds every detail of your life, not ensure that you fulfill every earthly responsibility and more? Will your family not be provided for? Do you trust Him to have everything else?
I do not propose that we are all to shut ourselves up from the rest of the world, and attend to nothing else but prayer. I propose that we take up the example of Christ, Who’s food was to do the will of the One Who sent him and to finish His work (John 4: 34). To be in the world, working, sweating, eating, praying, celebrating, teaching – everything for the love and glory of God.
“Therefore I tell you, do not worry about your life, what you will eat [or drink], or about your body, what you will wear. Is not life more than food and the body more than clothing? Look at the birds in the sky; they do not sow or reap, they gather nothing into barns, yet your heavenly Father feeds them. Are you not more important than they? Can any of you by worrying add a single moment to your life-span? Why are you anxious about clothes? Learn from the way the wild flowers grow. They do not work or spin. But I tell you that not even Solomon in all his splendor was clothed like one of them. If God so clothes the grass of the field, which grows today and is thrown into the oven tomorrow, will he not much more provide for you, O you of little faith? So do not worry and say, ‘What are we to eat?’ Or ‘What are we to drink?’ Or ‘What are we to wear?’ All these things the pagans seek. Your heavenly Father knows that you need them all. But seek first the kingdom of God and his righteousness, and all these things will be given you besides.” (Matthew 6: 25-33)
From The Imitation of Christ by Thomas a Kempis:
Vain is the man who puts his trust in men, in created things.
Do not be ashamed to serve others for the love of Jesus Christ and to seem poor in this world. Do not be self-sufficient but place your trust in God. Do what lies in your power and God will aid your good will. Put no trust in your own learning nor in the cunning of any man, but rather in the grace of God Who helps the humble and humbles the proud.
Catechism 2112: The first commandment condemns polytheism. It requires man neither to believe in, nor to venerate, other divinities than the one true God. Scripture constantly recalls this rejection of “idols, [of] silver and gold, the work of men’s hands. They have mouths, but do not speak; eyes, but do not see.” These empty idols make their worshippers empty: “Those who make them are like them; so are all who trust in them.” God, however, is the “living God” who gives life and intervenes in history.
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