God's love and the power of goodness - 7th week tuesday

Two things that we need to reflect on in our first reading today from the book of Genesis.  First, God loves everything he creates.  The reaction of God is described by the author in human terms – God regretted that he made man, God’s heart was grieved by man’s evil deeds, God was sorry for having made man.  If you notice these are human reactions, our natural reaction when somebody we love and care for hurt us.  It is said that the depth of one’s anger is equivalent to the depths of one’s love and concern.  So when God intervenes, even when God was punishing his people, the aim was always to save them.

This is reassuring thought, isn’t it?  When I was young there were times when I was punished by my parents, but as far as I can remember it never dawned on me nor had it crossed my mind that my parents were doing these because they hated me so much.  Punishments are understandable when these are seen as exemptions to the rule, the rule of so much care and so much concern and so much love, isn’t it?  But if punishment is the only, the only significant experience we have with our parents, then that is another story.

Our experience of God should be one of goodness and concern so that when difficult times come, even with hardships we could not understand, we are assured that we are cared for and everything will lead only to the good.  It is necessary that our experience of God is one of goodness.

And so let us ask ourselves, what is your experience of God?  How do I view the difficulties and challenges in my life?  How do I look at my sufferings, hardships, my sickness, trials, and the crisis in my life and how do I react to these?

The second thought which I would like us to hold on to is the power of goodness even if that goodness can be found nowhere else except on a few.  Humanity was doomed and yet because of the goodness of one person, Noah, because of the goodness of one family, humanity was saved.  Amidst the growing evil of his day and age Noah and his family remained loyal and obedient to God.  They were alone but they did not allow themselves to be flooded so to say by the evil of their age.  That is why Noah was seen by Christians as the image of Jesus because through the goodness and obedience of Jesus, through the goodness of one man, all humanity was saved.

Do not underestimate the power of goodness even it this resides only in just one person or in just one family or even in just one small group of people.  Do not underestimate the goodness that you do even if you are alone in an environment that is full of corruption and evil.  Goodness will eventually become victorious.  God promised so and we hold on to that promise.