We are to become totally and entirely human. We are to know the relief of accepting our human frailty set alongside the God of All who loves each of us to distraction and always will. God waits for us, and we dream of becoming people who are faithful to that love, a people who live without anxiety and with joy, people whose very words and actions have become praise of God. For somewhere in each and every heart, God has planted the desire for relationship with the God of love. And deep in every heart we know that nothing less will do if we are to be complete.
Crisis has the potential to deepen or damage that faithfulness.
If we rely on God, Jesus tells us that bringing our faithfulness to speech at critical moments will be the work of the Holy Spirit. For in those moments of our lives when we are graced enough to whisper the words of truth, we become real, human, invincible, and memorable. We spring from human tragedy as eternally alive and true. To revere the Lord is to treasure our relationship with God, to trust God's love for us above all other, and to follow wherever God leads. Most Judeans in the time of Malachi did not see the point of loving God.