Joke: Three very competitive priests died, but before God would let them into heaven, he gave them a chance to be anything they wanted. The first priest said, “I want to come back as myself, but one hundred times smarter than I already am.” So God made him a hundred times smarter. The second priest said, “I want to be even better than that priest, make me a thousand times smarter than I already am.” So God made him a thousand times smarter. The last guy decided he would be the best. So he said, “God make me better than both of them. Make me a million times smarter than I already am.” So God made him a woman.

What is the Kingdom of God? Is it a process of growing not only by human hands but by the hands of God as well? In this process of growing, we are invited to have a humble heart to acknowledge the need for God and to conform our will to God’s will.

In today’s Gospel, the Lord Jesus reminds the crowds about the kingdom of God that Matthew beautifully described saying, “The kingdom of God; it is as if a man were to scatter seed on the land and would sleep and rise night and day and through it all the seed would sprout and grow, he knows not how.” The kingdom of God does not only depend on human efforts like feeding the poor, sheltering the homeless, caring for the sick, caring for loved ones and others, praying for those who are in need, and many other good deeds. These good deeds are all good in themselves, but it would be better if we humble ourselves to acknowledge that God is the one who grants all our requests and efforts to do good deeds. The kingdom of God is like a process of growing from a seed into the tree that Matthew continues in today’s Gospel saying, the kingdom of God is “like a mustard seed that, when it is sown in the ground, is the smallest of all the seeds on the earth. But once it is sown, it springs up and becomes the largest of plants and puts forth large branches, so that the birds of the sky can dwell in its shade.” In this process of growing, we are invited to go out of ourselves to spread the Good News to others, to be witness to the world that Jesus Christ is the Lord Savior who has come to save us not only because of our good deeds but above all, it is because he loves us. In all that we do as Christians, as the followers of Jesus Christ, we are invited to surrender all our good deeds, prayers, in fact, our entire being to God’s will. The moment that we separate our will from God’s will, the moment that we are withered because we distance ourselves from God’s grace which causes us to grow.

One example of what separates our will from God’s will is when we focus too much attention on our body rather than on our soul, we distance ourselves from God as Saint Paul clearly said in today’s second reading, taken from the second letter of Saint Paul to Corinthian, “Brothers and sisters: We are always courageous, although we know that while we are at home in the body we are away from the Lord, for we walk by faith, not by sight.” One thing that I often heard was, “Father, we went on vacation with others who are not Catholics, so we didn’t want to separate from the group to go to Church on Sunday.” We need to refresh our bodies, to take vacation, but try not to forget that our soul needs food just as our body needs it even when we are on vacation.

We need to acknowledge the needs for God in our lives, humble ourselves, and allow the Lord to guide and lead us just as the prophet Ezekiel emphasizes the word of God saying in today’s first reading, “I, the LORD, bring low the high tree, lift high the lowly tree, wither up the green tree, and make the withered tree bloom.” What does it mean if it’s not the Lord who is in control of creating and destroying, bring it up and take it down, make it grow and make it wither? This is exactly what Saint Paul said in his first letter to the Corinthian community saying, “I planted, Apollos watered, but God was causing the growth. So then neither the one who plants nor the one who waters is anything, but God who causes the growth” (1 cor 3:6-7).

Have we acknowledged the need for God in our life? Do we still see God’s hands and God’s grace pour down on us amid our suffering such as suffering from cancer or any difficult illness, suffering from seeing our loved ones facing tough times, suffering from seeing our children go astray from their faith that we try to instill in them when they are young, and many other sufferings that we might encounter? Suffering is a mystery, but have we had a humble heart to acknowledge the need for God and to conform our will to God’s will? May God who begins a good work in us to bring us into existence with his loving care continue to watch over us, to protect us, and to help us to conform our will to his will even in the moments of distress, suffering, and experience any difficulty of life. The decision is yours.