Reflection
I’m fidgety. I’m always moving, always adjusting. I don’t know how to rest. I think a lot of students experience this, especially those who feel that they are constantly running out of time. Whether that be struggling to stay caught up on schoolwork, struggling to maintain relationships, stressing about graduation, feeling the anticipation of going abroad, waiting for change, trying to catch up with change. I don’t know how to rest. How to just be. This is what the Lord asks of us. To just be with Him.
The Gospel speaks of the centurion and how he asks for help, just to doubt his worth of receiving it when Jesus gives it so willingly. The faith of the centurion was so loyal that he believed Jesus could heal across distances. This impressed the Lord so much so that he declared his faith to be the strongest in Israel and decreed that people from all over would be saved, as long as they had loyal faith. Faith transcends backgrounds, identities, and social positions. None of these matter in His eyes. To Him, we are all equal. We all have an equal potential to be saved by Him. He does not care for the amount of worldly approval we have earned, only His own approval.
Then there’s the doubt. Doubt that creeps in when we struggle the most. I feel this doubt, yet I still claim to have faith. I want to have faith. But how can you experience both? Is this not hypocritical? I don’t have it figured out and I don’t need to. He shows up for me anyways, without being asked, without failure. My faith might fail, and I might experience doubt, but He still walks with me.
We must choose our faith. This is what I choose. Lord, may my faith in you be so great that you might be amazed by it, like how you were amazed by the faith of the centurion. I choose you over darkness, over loneliness, over sin. I choose you. I cannot carry my burdens alone. I am weak and He is willing.
The centurion believes that he is unworthy of allowing the Lord in. But the Lord doesn’t ask us to change to meet Him. He asks us to meet Him as we are so that He might carry the weight in lifting us up. I’m restless. But I choose to rest in you. “Come and save us, LORD our God.”
Xitlali Pedraza-Payta ‘27
Environmental and Ocean Sciences