God Is Always With Us, Isn't He?

((St. Agatha's, Canastota, NY)

(Photography©Michael Seagriff)

We believe that God is always with us, don’t we? Isn’t He? Or do we believe that, only when things are going well? How often do we thank God for His blessings when our lives seem to be on the right track and our burdens light? Do we take Him for granted during those satisfying times?  

What happens when we feel abandoned by God? How do we react when times are hard and challenging, when our daily crosses seem too heavy to bear? Do we accept them and thank God for sending them? Or like Gideon in today’s first reading, do we doubt God’s presence among us by asking “if the Lord is with us, why has all this happened to us?” 

Gideon doubted God’s presence among His people and asked for a sign before he did as God had asked of him.  God gave him a sign. 

In the midst of our daily struggles will we too ask for a sign before we accept God’s will for us? Or will we become willing cross bearers because we believe, as Saint Claude de Colombiere taught, that “(apart from sin) nothing happens to us in life unless God wills it.”?