1 Samuel 1 : 1-8
Mark 1 : 14-20
We are already eleven days into the new year, if we still want to consider it as new, because things have gone back to routine.
But eleven days into the new year, and this parish already have had 3 funerals, 2 weddings, 3 infants being baptized.
That is just only for the first 11 days of the year. What more is there to come, we don't really know, but we can be certain that more will come.
With each wedding, with each funeral, with each infant being baptized, a new direction takes shape, priorities are re-arranged, plans are altered and surprises are to be expected along the way.
However, we are not just to sit and wonder what else will happen this year. As Christians, we must ask : How will God happen in our lives?
That is quite a question. The coming or the happening of God in our lives can have such a radical and mysterious effect on us, that we need to stop and reflect on it.
Yet the coming or the happening of God in our lives is also a time of fulfillment.
In the gospel, when Jesus came into the lives of Peter and Andrew, and James and John, they followed Him at once because they know it was time to change their course of life, to go on a different kind of fishing trip and to catch a different kind of fish.
Similarly in the 1st reading, we also could feel that God was going to come in the life of Hannah and something was going to happen.
The coming and the happening of God in our lives this year could make us anxious and leave us in suspense.
But we should feel excited and energized and filled with joyful hope because God is coming into our lives and make it a happening for us.
Our lives are not made to be dull and dreary. God wants to come into our lives everyday and every moment so that we too can live the loving life of God.