“Trust one who has gone through it.”

“The aim of all Christian education, moreover, is to train the believer in an adult faith that can make him a "new creation", capable of bearing witness in his surroundings to the Christian hope that inspires him.”  ― Pope Benedict XVI, The Sacrament Of Charity: Sacramentum Caritatis

Scripture Text: (ACTS 20:17-27)

From Miletus Paul had the presbyters

of the Church at Ephesus summoned.

When they came to him, he addressed them,

“You know how I lived among you

the whole time from the day I first came to the province of Asia.

I served the Lord with all humility

and with the tears and trials that came to me

because of the plots of the Jews,

and I did not at all shrink from telling you

what was for your benefit,

or from teaching you in public or in your homes.

I earnestly bore witness for both Jews and Greeks

to repentance before God and to faith in our Lord Jesus.

But now, compelled by the Spirit, I am going to Jerusalem.

What will happen to me there I do not know,

except that in one city after another

the Holy Spirit has been warning me

that imprisonment and hardships await me.

Yet I consider life of no importance to me,

if only I may finish my course

and the ministry that I received from the Lord Jesus,

to bear witness to the Gospel of God’s grace.

“But now I know that none of you

to whom I preached the kingdom during my travels

will ever see my face again.

And so I solemnly declare to you this day

that I am not responsible for the blood of any of you,

for I did not shrink from proclaiming to you the entire plan of God.”

What a valuable lesson for those times when we look back over our lives!

We fret over how this or that situation worked out. We worry whether we did or said enough. But worrying never helps. All we can do is ask whether we were trying to say yes to God—and leave the rest to him.

Ultimately, God is the One who is in control. We can entrust our friends and families to him because we know that God cares about them. We know that he loves them and will see them through every peak and valley in their lives long after we are gone.

Is what we do important? Yes, but it isn’t all up to us. God is above everything, and we can’t always see what fruit will come from our words or actions. So take a lesson from St. Paul. Trust that as you are trying to be faithful to what God is asking, he will take care of the rest.