When my father was growing up he was always at sea,
sometimes alone and sometimes with my grandfather and his younger brother. They
were fishermen who fish to provide and support the family’s needs. My family’s
root is indeed very much connected with fishing. This is very evident in our
surname, baring, a Sinugbuanon
(Cebuano) term for nets woven like loose cloth, fine ones for catching tiny
shrimps in the surf. This
expresses my family’s relationship with fishing and with the sea.
Likewise, my father is very much knowledgeable on
this kind of life and more so was my grandfather who can even predict if there
will be storm coming or if it is a good time to fish or not. Yet, as my father
would retell his story, even though there were no signs of a forth coming
storm, they encountered storms at the sea and so feared their lives and call on
God. So much so, as they encountered the storms in their lives, they struggled
to live as a family and the more they trusted God and are convinced of their
faith in Jesus.
This reminds me, that faith is something deep. Faith
is being tested and refined through the many storms that will come. Yet, faith
is to be founded on Jesus that develops a personal relationship with him as
Lord and saviour.
That’s why, reading upon the Gospel, I remember also
those thousands of typhoon survivors who are left homeless, jobless, orphaned,
or widowed. There was so much destruction of both lives and properties and even
of their hopes and dreams. It was a terrible blow that has surely shaken the everyone’s
faith.
But I read a story in the Inquirer published few
days after the tragedy. A mother witnessed how her daughter died. When there
was the storm surge, their house was destroyed but her daughter was hit by a
debris and so wounding the daughter. Yet, there was also the strong current and
the high level of water. The mother was holding her daughter so that she won’t
be swept away by the current but the daughter got tired as she was wounded as
well and told her mother, “Let me go Mama, save yourself.” There was no other
option; if she won’t let her go both of them will die. It was the most painful
part of her life as she saw her daughter swept away by the current. And she
questioned God. But she never lost her faith but continued to trust in the Lord.
She recalled that when the sky became clear and the water subsided, she looked
for her daughter and went into a chapel to seek answers for her questions and
doubts and to find consolation for her grief, hoping to find any.
And that’s what I find amazing. Despite the storm
that came into the life of this woman and that her faith might have been
strongly shaken. After all, she affirms that there is God. She was moved to
trust more to God and to call on God. And I could sense that this woman is
convinced of her faith, convinced of her relationship with the Lord.
And in this human experience, a storm of rain, flood
and strong wind come; a storm that would make my life difficult; a storm that
would challenge me and teach a life not of comfort but of difficulty. The storm
that would come would teach me to go beyond my own weaknesses, my own frailties
and selfishness into a transformed self in Christ as I am called to do the will of God. And this is surely possible with a
strong faith in Jesus. Definitely, this faith is not merely about mumbling my
prayers as saying Lord! Lord!, but
more than that. Faith is a personal relationship with God founded in the
community of believers.
Yet, transformation of self in Christ is not just a
matter of going out from my comfort zones. It is also not just all about going
beyond and being healed from my past experiences and wounds. It is neither just
about vulnerability nor docility to the storm. Transcendence is to be able to
fully trust in the goodness of the Lord. It is to give everything to God
without any slightness of reservation and without counting the cost just like
the mother who lost her property and her only daughter.
In my own
words, this is what it means to build my house of faith on a rock that it
implies self-transcendence in an expression of a genuine self-sacrifice. This
is what God wants, a genuine self-sacrifice, a self-giving amid my
insecurities. That doing the will of God and building the house of faith on a
rock is giving whole of my life including the not so nice part of my life,
those insecurities and doubts. This God demands all of it, everything, the
totality of my life, of my being. And this will be a faith-life experience.
However, honestly speaking, my feeling about this is disturbing. I am afraid,
anxious and insecure. This thought frightens me! Being a Christian and
believing in Jesus is disturbing and demanding. Yet, God continually invites me
to put my trust in Him for He is a faithful God. Amen.
December 5, 2013
