Breakfast With the Word Friday 31st Week Ordinary Time of the Year
When we keep ourselves busy and plan how to live in the next two or three years, let us also remember that a day is coming when we must give an account of all we have done. As we plan for the future, let us remember to plan wisely.
When we plan on how to marry, build houses, make money, create business empires, invest perfectly, let us not forget the Creator to whom we must all return one day. It is just one day and everything we acquire, study, plan, create etc will come to an end.
As we plan, let us also plan for the soul. To plan wisely is to prepare ourselves for tomorrow so that whatever happens will not adversely affect us. As you plan to win your election, remember to plan on how to win the heart of God. To plan wisely is to plan for our future both here and after.
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The Shrewd Steward.
In the gospel, Jesus tells us the parable of the steward who is wasteful of his resources. The master who is not happy with this, calls him to give an account of his stewardship.
The servant knowing fully well what will descend on Him draws a very shrewd plan on how to make up his life if eventually, he loses his position. He calls all the father’s debtors and reduces every debt they owe to the master. This will make them welcome and repay him for thinking good of them if eventually, he loses his master’s trust.
The master praises his clearsightedness and fast acumen. This is not to suggest that Jesus is praising his dishonest life but that this is how the sons of God suppose to be fast in planning on how to be with their Loving Father at the end of their earthly lives.
The children of the world are very fast in planning on how to survive in this world more than the children of the light plan to win the heart of God. So, the children of light, needs also to plan ahead on how to win the heart of their heavenly father.
The Key Points
1. Just like the Master enriches the steward with resources is how God enriches us with His love, blessed us with natural and human resources, talents, gifts, positions etc. Whatever and wherever we are, are made possible if not by His grace. One day we must give the account back to God on all He has done for us.
2. The Steward in this parable can be likened to many nations that was blessed by God in every ramification. But the only they repaid this love by God is to waste His resources and continue to allow people to suffer in hunger and poverty.
Like the steward, we have followed the career of embezzlement and when problems arise, we begin to find a way to wriggle out of it, even if it means to lie. We only plan on how to make more money, and forget the consequences of our actions for the future.
3. For the sake of the future, the government has to plan on how to make things better for people. We have to create in our minds an overview of what our future will look like and hence put things in place.
When we do the things we are supposed to do at the present, we make way for what will come in the future.
4. One glaring fact in that parable is that the steward knowing fully well that he will give account, uses his present position to prepare for his life after. To plan wisely is to plan for what we may encounter in the next years to come.
What have we used what God has given to us to do? Is it to intimidate people? To kill? show off? To fight others? Suffer those under you? Is it to save lives? or to plan for eternal life and win the heart of God?
5.. Just like the steward lives his life not knowing that a day of reckoning will come unknowingly to him is how we live thinking nothing is going to happen until at that particular hour when our stewardship will come to an end.
We then begin to regret how we have wasted our past years and look for a way to make amends. The time to make amends is now. Tomorrow may be too late.
6. Finally, like the steward, we are only fast in planning on how to live a comfortable life here. Sometimes we do this even if it means making them dishonestly.
We spend time to plan on how to make our way even if it means killing or selling our bodies. In many people is the zeal in promoting ourselves, businesses, political parties.
The world is highly shrewd and zealous in promoting pleasure and profits more than they promote the kingdom of God.
In essence, if the same zeal and wisdom we plan on how to do these are also channelled in promoting peace, love, forgiveness, progress, faith, helping one another, creating jobs, saving lives, making lives better for people, unity etc the world would be a better place. As we plan, let us plan wisely. The time of reckoning will surely come.
May God bless you beloved and give us the strength to plan wisely. May He give us the grace to stand firm even in the midst of challenges. Amen.