THE FULLNESS OF LIFE
The Ultimate Seven: Fundamental principles of a God-centered life
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God Reigns (continued)
In relation to everything created, God is the wholly "other", the Transcendent Being. With regards to the divine activity, especially in sustaining every created thing is its being, however, God also is the Immanent One, pervading all things. This paradoxical mystery of His transcendence and immanence will continue to baffle us. And the more we penetrate the depth of this mystery, the more it fills us with awe and wonder. Thus did St. Paul proclaimed that God dwells in "inaccessible light" while affirming also that "In Him we live and move and have our being" (Acts 17:28).
Because of God's transcendence and immanence, His kingdom is also both a transcendent and immanent reality. It is not of this world and yet it is in this world (cf. John 17:16-18). It is not of this world because it is of spiritual order, beyond time and space. It is in this world because as Holy Scripture says, "For from Him, through Him and to Him are all things" (Rom. 11:36).
In the spiritual order, God's Reign is without beginning and without end. In the temporal order it began with Creation and continues through the changing patterns of this passing world and the unfolding of human history until the new heaven and the new earth are realized.
In spite of the disobedience of the rebel angels who became demons and the fall of the first Man and Woman who ate the forbidden fruit from the tree of knowledge good and evil, God's reign still prevails. God is absolutely in control. He had already foreseen the crimes and horrible sins that would emerge from the cruelty of the human heart, and God is prepared for all these, so that in the fullness of time He sent His only begotten Son to redeem the world and to establish His kingdom -- God's Reign -- of peace, justice and truth of holiness and grace; of love and life. Even here and now, God's Reign is accessible to anyone who is willing to submit to His only will and willing to pray, "Your kingdom come, Your will be done on earth as it is in heaven.."
Constant attentiveness and complete submission to the Reign of God in one's life is the secret of an all-encompassing interior peace amidst the most trying situation in life. It is the secret of saints and mystic like St. Teresa (1515-1582) of Avila, Spain. Amidst the suffering and vicissitude of life, she remained unperturbed. In her breviary she wrote these lines:
"Let nothing disturb you.
Let nothing frighten you.
Everything passes away.
God alone does not change.
God alone suffices."