Life is a journey. We can look forward or keep hesitating or looking back.
We can be burdened, even disabled by constantly looking back at past mistakes, past sins. We can begin to focus on the negative, what is lacking in me, what is lacking in those around me. We can become self-preoccupied, orbiting around oneself. We can go around in circles focusing on disappointments with ourselves and others, with life.
Sometimes we stay with those things unconsciously. We wake up in a bad or anxious or preoccupied mood. Sometimes this stays there for a long time lingering under the surface.
We can become short with others, and then feel bad about doing so. We can waste so much of our previous life!
Of course there may be an obvious reason why we are preoccupied. An argument with someone, a wrong decision made, etc.
I do not believe that we always need to go back and try to dig up the past and psychoanalyse ourselves all the time! I know that sometimes this can be helpful, especially in some serious psychological therapy, at times even necessary.
However, very often by handing our lives over to God we can move forward and leave the preoccupations behind. Focusing on God who calls me to move forward, who invites me to embrace the greatest and deepest reality, is liberating. The God who calls me to choose the greater good and not to settle for the half good, the lesser good!
Easter time keeps reminding us that the resurrected Christ lives in us. Believing in Jesus and trusting in him leads us to live life fully.
We choose our priorities. We don’t sit on the fence and procrastinate. We go for the “bulls eye”.
So many before us have found peace by making the fundamental choice to say ‘yes’ to God. The Gospel begins to be like a map guiding us forward.
The more I reach out, the more I give myself, the more I renew my commitment, the more I can keep moving forward.
As Jesus said, we put our hand on the plough and we keep moving on and not keep looking back all the time!
God Bless you today.
+Charles Gauci
Bishop of Darwin