1. The quest for God,
brought about also by sufferings.
2. Finding God.
3.Becoming the
recipient of His Divine Grace and Blessings - as healing.
4. MOST IMPORTANT =
RETAINING that Grace and Blessings.
It is the fourth
stage that is so important, and where most people slip with time, because they
take God's Grace for granted and forget its worth and begin to lose themselves
in self-enjoyment in the things of the world. It is then that suffering hits
back with a vengeance.
And this time round
God's Grace does not come back so easily because it had been taken for granted.
Man has to fully and completely realise the worth of the Grace of God and
understand that God had given it to man, not so that man may forget Him and
lose himself in the things of the world, but rather to remember the Benefactor
along with the things of the world.
My Father described
the relationship between God and man and the world like the relationship
between a Mother and her Child and Toys.
The child plays with
toys and forgets his mother. And when the toys break or he is hurt, he cries
out to his mother -- who comes running to lift him up.
The mother tells the
child: " Why did you run off and leave me, to play with your toys? I wasnt
going to snatch the toys from you, I had given you the toys to play with. But I
wanted you to stay close to me -- so that when the toys broke and you fell and
hurt yourself I could come running to raise you up!!"
My father used to
say:
"God is always
with us. But we are not always with him!
We are not with Him
when we become engrossed in the things of the world and forget Him!"
"But even then
He is like the mother who does not take revenge against her child for
forgetting him, and still comes running each time he falls down and cries!!
But how much better
for the child to remain close to the mother so that she will always be there to
save the child from falling.
In this case she
saves the child from the fall and is also close to him.
In the second case
when the child leaves her she still saves the child -- but the child gets hurt
in the process of falling!!
"God never
places a veil on his own face. It is man who places a veil on the face of God
-- the veil of man's shortcomings and sins!"
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