Respect the dog, knowing the master.
Sometimes reflections start from absurd thoughts, from proverbs that seem to clash with your reflections, but then everything takes on a truth.
I like putting my thoughts and reflections down on "paper", and rereading them after a while helps me take stock. That's what I intend to do by leaving my notepad open for everyone to see through this blog.
All this can help or destroy. In the first case you can find people who support and encourage you. In the second you have to fight not to drown in the mud.
Not that this frightens me, but it all lies in the choice, which then proves useful or not.
So my choice is to respect those who read what I write, who appreciate what I do outside the blog, but above all who recognise an example in the mistakes of their own life, or make those mistakes their own so as not to make them.
It's not a game show, but my aim is to leave you free to choose what to change, or what to still get wrong, in your life. It certainly won't be me showing you the right way, but always and only your own desire to open your eyes.
The respect that comes from me is nice to receive from you too. Because just as I'm giving it to you, so I received it. What I have changed in my life, because of my mistakes, I owe to the One who called me to live a different life. I received and I am giving.
I can say that I love teaching because it gives me a way to teach, but what I have learned was not taught to me by a man but by God. I didn't have a good start with Him, but when He starts chasing after you, you can't do anything but surrender. What I appreciated in His teaching is love (so inimitable, so beautiful). True love, though, didn't come to me from Him directly but from the example I had through the Son.
If you talk to people today, everyone talks to you about God, but if you go deeper into the subject, not everyone "appreciates" the Son. Everyone has their own God, everyone has created their own image of god; few recognise the Father through the Son.
Imagine a table with three people: one of the three is you, another is God and the other a stranger. Every time you need something at the table, you ask the stranger to tell God to pass you that tray, that dish. God would tell you: ask me, you don't need to ask someone you don't even know, turn to me.
There is a common God for all those who build altars in their lives (even mafiosi, 'ndranghetisti and camorristi have their God through what they do), but who recognises the master through his dog?
Of course it sounds bad to think of the Son as a dog, but all things considered Christ was treated like a dog, beaten, spat on, knocked about and, well, crucified; but when you read in His word that through His death you too are His co-heir, you too take on the title of son. You didn't know that, eh? Don't you realise that if your attitude changes to try to be loving, you too become a beaten dog? And yet you are co-heir with the Son of the King most high.
Yes, the victory is in the after, not in the before. The victory is in what you are changing, in what you will see coming into your life, in what you know you have gained in Christ.
In Christ you recognise a passage to the Father. If you recognise who Christ was, you know who the Father is who sent Him. You won't recognise other fathers; there won't be any, only imitations. And one of the most beautiful things you'll read in the Bible is that everyone can imitate the things of God but not His Love. Not even Satan can imitate His Love. Just think what a great revelation it is to be able to tell what can be good for you and what bad.
So, again so as not to open endless reflections, I tell you: today, stop and think how many times you have relied on a God you don't actually know and have never really been able to know, because you haven't known the Son.
It's an honour to be told that your child is well-mannered and a good example of their parents. In the same way God made you know His Son so you could know who He is in His Love.
There are many gods, millions and millions, but only one sent His Son, who died and then rose again and is still here as a King through the Holy Spirit.
A reflection for your reflection.
Inspired by the verse:
John 14:6
Jesus answered him, "I am the way, the truth, and the life; no one goes to the Father except by me.