Don’t forget the oil, trim the wick of your life

Human life is very advanced now. With the help of science our generation can predict what to expect.  Accordingly, we plan our life and secure the best outcome for life.  That is what most people think at least most of the time.  Are we really in control of our life?  COVID-19 has shattered such confidence.  Travel plans are in disarray now.  Businesses are made to rethink their operations. Celebrations are to be modified. Schedules are rearranged.  COVID-19 has thrown at the face of humanity a lot of uncertainty and unpredictability.   In spite of great scientific progress, unpredictability is ruling human life.

Human life has always been unpredictable, both in its worse and in its best.  That has been the nature of human life.  That will continue to be the case as long humans live on the face of the earth.  Think of where you are in your life now.  The success in your career, the love you found, the friends you made, and the recognition you got, or the lack of any of these in your life was not what you planned.  They happened.  In hindsight, you can either find joy that, though you did not plan them, you were prepared to accept the good things that came your way.  Similarly, you regret the bad things that happened in your life because of the lack of preparedness on your part. Preparedness to accept graceful happenings in life is equally, if not more, important in the spiritual life too.

Be prepared to accept God’s grace, when it quite unexpectedly, as always, unfolds in your life.  To recognise and accept the graceful happenings as they come your way, you will require the light of the Spirit burning in you.  The oil that can kindle the light of the Holy Spirit are mercy, compassion, virtuous life, self-sacrifice, love and trust in God.  None of these can be borrowed from another or can be shared with others.  If you are not ever ready with such an oil for an enlightened life, you will miss out on God’s grace when it comes.  By the time you realise you have missed it, you will be too late to ask for a second chance.  Therefore, if you do not want to be like the foolish maidens in the story Jesus told; keep up the precepts of our Lord.  Think of a graceful happening in your life.   Reminisce the preparedness that made the graceful happening possible.  Thus trimming the wick of your life will enable you to enter into the joy the Kingdom of God with our Lord in this, otherwise stressful, mundane life.