THE LARGER LOSS
A tale of two young brothers was narrated
by Rev. Fr. George Panackal, V.C, Director, Divine Retreat centre, Muringoor,
Kerala, South India.
A man had two young children. When the elder
boy was at School, he gave a toffee to the younger son who was at home. But
when he was about to eat it, his elder brother returned from school. He
snatched the toffee from his younger brother, put it in his mouth and ran away.
The younger brother burst into tears and rushed to his room. He locked the room
from inside and fell on his bed, weeping profusely, worrying about the lost
toffee. After a while, his father learned about the incident and came to the
younger child’s room, carrying a bottle full of toffees which he had kept
secretly in his safe. He knocked at the door and asked his child to open the
door. He even announced that he had brought a lot of toffees for him. But the
child refused to listen to his father. He lay on the bed, paying a deaf ear to
his father’s knock and talk. He continued to cry, worrying about his minor
loss. His worry prevented him from gaining a much greater joy.
A famous painting portrays
Jesus knocking at a ‘door without a handle’. The door represents the mind of
man which has to be opened from inside in response to the knocking from the
outside. Jesus does not open the door of our mind by force. This is depicted in
the Holy Bible in the Book of Revelation, "Listen!
I stand at the door and knock; if any one hears my voice and opens the door, I
will come to his house and eat with him, and he will eat with me" {Revelation 3: 20}.
This message teaches us that
Jesus is knocking at the door of our heart, awaiting our invitation to enter
and be with us, to console us and shower His infinite blessings upon us. It is
said that though God is omnipotent and omnipresent, the human mind is a special
place where He enters only with our consent. He has granted us the freedom to
frame our attitude to Him.
We may waste a lot of time, energy and
opportunities worrying about the minor losses that have happened in our lives
and cursing the persons, who were, in our view, responsible for our losses. But
by this foolish action, we are actually shutting the door of our heart against
the merciful God and refusing to receive greater gifts of grace from our loving
Lord. We must accept moments of pain and
apparent losses we may encounter in our life as parts of God’s plan for our
ultimate victory and prosperity.
God speaks through Jeremiah,
"I alone know the plans I have for you, plans to bring you prosperity
and not disaster, plans to bring about the future you hope for {Jeremiah 29: 11}.
Let us open the doors of our heart and greet
our Lord with pleasure. Let us seek His blessings and request Him to purify our
heads, hearts, hands and habits.
……………………………………………………………………..
© By: Prof. Dr. Babu Philip, Former Professor, Cochin
University of Science & Technology, Fine Arts Avenue, Kochi-682016, Kerala,
India, Prof. Mrs. Rajamma Babu,
Former Professor, St. Dominic's College, Kanjirappally, Leo. S. John, St. Antony's Public
School, Anakkal, Kanjirappally and Neil John, Alfeen Public School, Kanjirappally, Kerala, India. For more moral stories, parables and
anecdotes for students, catechists, teachers and preachers, kindly visit
our web-sites:
This is Story No.
330 in the second site. Please click ‘Older Posts’ at
the bottom of a page to read previous stories and click 'Newer
Posts' at the bottom of a page to read newer stories in these sites.
Please click on a word in the 'Story Themes' to read stories
on that theme.
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