Being Stubborn Makes Us Useless

April 17,  Monday of the Second Week of Easter
Readings: Acts 4:23-31; John 3:1-8

People, in general, want to be great. They want to excel and be good at everything. However, that is only sometimes the case. A former head of the Youth Ministry encountered young people who wanted to do so many things simultaneously and were expected to be good at them. There was one who wanted to be a proficient speaker. The problem is that he needed to have the gift to be an eloquent speaker; he could not even look at the audience while speaking. The head thought he was better with planning and logistics because he had a thing for analysis. She explained to them that God had given everyone their talents, and that is where they should concentrate. These should be honed through a series of training exercises and formations. Being a “jack of all trades (and master of none)” is not always applicable. Unfortunately, they did not want to listen and wanted to do things their way.
 
In the First Reading, some people and leaders went against the Lord, despite his goodness and kindness. In their pursuit of greatness, they did not accept Him as the Son of God. In our pursuit to be great, we leave God out of the picture, but then we forget that our talents and skills are from Him. These young people have forgotten that for them to be able to give wisdom to their fellow youth, they also must have the “wisdom” of how to speak. Let’s say one cannot feed a hungry person with no food in their kitchen. And then some want to serve in the church but do not want to undergo or attend formation because they think, “There is no need for us to attend; we already know these things.”
 
In the Gospel, Nicodemus took Jesus’ words literally. We all tend to take things literally. We do not understand that we have to go through God so that we will be able to serve Him well. How can we serve God if we do not want His spirit to be with us? If we do not allow Him to form us and allow the Holy Spirit to guide us, how can we better serve our brothers and sisters? If we do not have that grace from God, and we are all stubborn, all our talents and skills will be useless, and we will never be able to serve Him well. All the gifts God gave us will be put to waste.