Moving forward in the Lord

The Lord Is My Chef Daily Recipe for the Soul by Fr. Nicanor F. Lalog II
Monday in the Sixteenth Week of Ordinary Time, Year I, 24 July 2023
Exodus 14:5-18   <*[[[[>< + ><]]]]*>   Matthew 12:38-42

God our loving Father,
as we brace for a coming 
powerful typhoon as well as
the planned transport strike
beginning today until Wednesday,
may we take this as an opportunity
for us to muster our strength
and firm resolve to move forward
in you and with you.

Many times we are like your 
Chosen People in the wilderness
during their Exodus from Egypt,
always complaining with every
difficulties and trials we encounter
in our journey, dilly-dallying on
whether to go back or forge ahead.

And they complained to Moses, “Were there no burial places in Egypt that you had to bring us out here to die in the desert? Why did you do this to us? Why did you bring us out of Egypt? Did we not tell you this in Egypt, when we said, ‘Leave us alone. Let us serve the Egyptians’? Far better for us to be the slaves of the Egyptians than die in the desert.”

Exodus 14:11-12

If we are not complaining to you,
O Lord, we are challenging you
for more proofs why we should
trust you, or believe you
or even follow you like the
scribes and Pharisees who kept
on asking for signs from Jesus.

Forgive us, O Lord,
for always looking back,
refusing to let go of the past
and being so anxious and wary
of the future, failing to live in the 
present moment where you are
for your name is I AM,
not I WAS nor I WILL BE.
Let me learn to stop once in a while,
look back if needed but set my sights
to your future glory by seeing
you with me and in me
in the present moment.
Amen.