Everything belongs to you…the world, life, death, present, future: all belong to you, and you to Christ, and Christ to God. I Corinthians 3:21-23
Wow. The world belongs to us. The present and the future. Unheard-of wealth. Everything ours, because we have nothing but God, and to have God means having everything.
Now, this ownership we have does not present itself immediately to the senses. I was just thinking this morning, ‘Wish I had me a Kirk Cousins jersey.’ But I don’t own one, and I am not about to own one between now and my death.
To experience our ownership of things, we need total abandonment to faith.
Like St. Peter, who said: ‘Rabbi, all evidence points to our not catching any fish right now. We fished all night, and caught nothing. Your demand that we lower the nets now strikes me and all logical people as absurd. Must be some kind of joke.
‘But, you know what? I trust you, O Nazarene, more than I trust myself. After all, what do I know? I am not God. So here goes.’
Plenty of fish, bursting nets—Bring an extra boat, or we’ll sink! Yes, a miracle. But an even bigger miracle is: Faith. When a human mind gazes into the impenetrable darkness of God’s infinite greater-ness, and humbly concludes:
‘Yes, we human beings got some smarts. We got even more smarts than African fish-eagles, and they know all about thousands of miles of geography, rivers, air currents, other birds, etc.’
But the miracle of faith takes all human intelligence in, with sober respect, and then says, ‘Compared to the Word of God, the thoughts of the wise are vain. The only thing I really know is that the smart money is on God knowing better than me.’