Unseen enemies and unseen protection

You don’t know how close you are to death.

You don’t know how close other cars have come to crossing the center line and hitting you head-on.

You don’t know how closely violent robbers have been looking at you.

You don’t know how many times someone has thought about ruining your life.

In today’s first reading (Jeremiah 11:18-20), the prophet laments that he had not known that people had been plotting his death, but he expresses his firm faith in the knowledge and the justice that comes from God.

As always, it is important not to let our emotions get the better of us: neither to let ourselves be frozen by fear or swept away by paranoia or vindictiveness, but to keep God’s truth, love, and justice as the controlling force of our lives and to place ourselves continually in his hands as his precious possessions and his unworthy instruments.