BE NEAR TO JESUS

I spent my Christmas vacation with my family, especially with my nephews and nieces who are still toddlers. My siblings gifted them with lots of good toys. Children have the special talent of dismantling toys to many pieces without any idea on how to bring them back. Due to their curiosity and carelessness, with the season not even at an end, the good toys they have received are reduced to good for nothing. I was tempted to scold them for putting to waste the gifts they have received from their parents who had worked so hard to provide for them. My siblings had reacted differently. Instead of scolding them, they appreciated their creativity in transforming their toys from one form to another: an action figure, for example, became an airplane for one of my nephews. How creative he was, my sister retorted. Parents have the ability to see the good in their children indeed.

God can see us through and through. All creation is transparent to Him; everything is uncovered and laid bare. Many of us may see one another as sinful, broken and weak; unworthy of love, care, and respect. But just like any good parent, God sees more than our infractions. God sees the good He planted into our hearts when He created us. When the Pharisees saw only Levi's sinfulness in being a tax collector and a public sinner, Jesus saw more than this. Jesus saw Levi's capacity for conversion to become an apostle and an evangelist. God grasps not only our past, and present. He knows who we can be in the future; our totality. He sees our destiny which He himself has authored for us; the destiny to be with Him in glory in His Kingdom.

This is the capacity for goodness He placed in us when He created us. (Man is created under original grace first before he is tainted with original sin). God, through His own initiative, invites us to see the good in us; to approach Him for healing and mercy in our brokenness and sinfulness. More than being our mistakes, we are primarily good. God wants us to nurture this goodness through His constant invitation for us to go nearer to Him; to follow Him; to be His disciples.

Can bad persons be good? Isn't this contrary to the norms and standards of this world? When one associates oneself with bad persons, isn't he endangering himself from being contaminated by their evilness? These may be true to us humans, weak and easily influenced as we are, but not to God, not to Christ. It is the other way around. The proximity and nearness of Jesus (who is all good) to us allows us to bring out the goodness in us. We never induce evil in God. It is God who sways us to be good. Out of His love and mercy for us, God tirelessly stretches His hands, inviting us: "Follow me. Bring out the goodness in you." Truly, for God, and hopefully for us too, laws exist to foster right attitudes and virtues; to bring out the good in each person; not to condemn those who, in their struggle to be good, may have stumbled along the way.

Go near to Jesus. Don't hide from Him (You cannot hide anything from Him after all, for He knows everything.).

Answer His invitation to bring out the goodness in you.