2 John 4-9 / Luke 17:26-37
Routines are helpful in that they give us some stability in life.
When we have a routine for our daily lives, we get a sense of normalcy.
So, we wake up at a particular time, have our morning routines, go to work, meet our schedules, come back in the evening and then rest for the night.
As much as routines are helpful, we may also become monotonous with life and become like machines running on a program.
In the gospel, Jesus cited two figures from the Old Testament, and the situations they were in.
During the time of Noah, people were eating and drinking, marrying wives and husbands, right up to the day Noah went into the ark, and the flood came and destroyed them all.
Similarly during the time of Lot, people were eating and drinking, buying and selling, planting and building, but the day Lot left Sodom, God rained fire and brimstone from heaven and it destroyed them all.
Jesus cited these two examples to give a warning on living life with just routines and monotony, and forgetting about the presence of God in their lives.
Jesus tells us to always be prepared for the time when God reveals Himself so that we will know what God is showing and telling us.
To be prepared is, as the first reading tells us, to live our lives in the truth of God’s Commandments.
To live in the truth of God’s Commandments is to live a love as Jesus has shown us.
By living in God’s truth and love, we will see and know what God is telling us even as we go on with the routines of our life.