Monday, June 7, 2010

Give Priority to the Will of God and to Fulfill His Work

Fr George Vayaliparambil




John 4:31-38 (King James Version)“31In the mean while his disciples prayed him, saying, Master, eat. 32But he said unto them, I have meat to eat that ye know not of. 33Therefore said the disciples one to another, Hath any man brought him ought to eat?


34.Jesus saith unto them, My meat is to do the will of him that sent me, and to finish his work.





35.Say not ye, There are yet four months, and then cometh harvest? behold, I say unto you, Lift up your eyes, and look on the fields; for they are white already to harvest.


36.And he that reapeth receiveth wages, and gathereth fruit unto life eternal: that both he that soweth and he that reapeth may rejoice together.


37.And herein is that saying true, One soweth, and another reapeth.


38.I sent you to reap that whereon ye bestowed no labour: other men laboured, and ye are entered into their labours





Dear beloved in Christ ,



Today, as we go through the experience of the resurrection and freedom, the word of God calls, all of us to lead a Theo-centered life. Jesus the full man and full God says his disciples that the ultimate need and aim of His Life is to fulfill the will of the father.
The disciples came to Jesus and asked Him to have food that they bring. But Jesus, instead of having the food twisted the situation to convey yet another message to His disciples. In this situation, he did not mean to refuse the basic need of a human being, but gave priority to the spiritual needs than the physical or psychological needs.
According to the famous Humanitarian Psychologist Abraham Maslow, there is a hierarchy of needs to fulfill for one to achieve self actualization and self transcendence.
The basic premise of the model is: Each of us is motivated by needs. Our most basic needs are inborn, having evolved over tens of thousands of years. Abraham Maslow’s Hierarchy of Needs helps to explain how these needs motivate us. Maslow’s Hierarchy of Needs states that we must satisfy each need in turn, starting with the first, which deals with the most obvious needs for survival itself. Only when the lower order needs of physical and emotional well-being are satisfied, are we concerned with the higher order needs of influence and personal development. Conversely, if the things that satisfy our lower order needs are swept away, we are no longer concerned about the maintenance of our higher order needs.



























In this humanitarian Psychologist’s view basic need of the human being is the physiological need such as food, water and air and so on. But in today’s gospel our Divine psychologist swears that the basic and ultimate need of a son of man is to fulfill the will of God. “My meat is to do the will of him that sent me, and to finish his work.”(John 4: 34). What does it mean? Is He against the basic human needs? Never, He is not against the basic needs of Human being, but he intended to convey the message that the basic need of a human being should be “to do the will of God”.
In this Modern world we fail to give the priority for our spiritual needs. We give priority to our other needs that the humanitarian psychologist suggests. As a Christian we are supposed to see and be conscious to fulfill our spiritual need that which the God wants to be fulfilled fist in our life.
After a while Abraham Maslow proposed another theory as Self transcendent theory, as an addition to the self actualization theory. He says even though one has achieved his self actualization need there he will feel a vacuum in his life. Which he termed as Self-transcendence to connect to something beyond the ego or to help others find self-fulfillment and realize their potential.
Here Jesus the true God says us that the self transcendence is possible if we give priority in our life to fulfill our spiritual needs which is the will of God. Jesus says
"But seek ye first His kingdom and His righteousness, and all these things will be given to you as well." -Matthew 6:33
As a Christian we have to reorganize our hierarchy of needs in a circular figure, instead of Abraham Maslow’s Pyramidal structure.



The human needs will be achieved either fully or partially. Once our spiritual need is fulfilled our other needs will be automatically fulfilled. We will experience self-transcendence through out our life if we give priority to spiritual needs in our life. Jesus teaches his disciples that the rest of the human needs will be fulfilled by the grace of God or fulfilling that needs are not a matter for the existence of a spiritual man. We can achieve a transcendent life with out fulfilling the other needs; provided we fulfill the spiritual needs.
We can say that it will change the importance of each need in a person’s life according to the situations. For example, we all have heard stories of parents who were willing to die for their children. The parent placed far less importance on their own physiological and safety needs and far more importance on their love and belonging needs. The starving artist is another example of someone who places a greater importance on aesthetic needs than other needs.
Dear friends for what we give priority in our life? Definitely we have lot of things to do in our daily life. Obviously, there are miles for us to go before we sleep; But think how we start our journey in our daily life? For what do we give priority in our life? Let us all give priority for the will of God and to fulfill His work through our lives. Let us make it our basic and ultimate need. Even if we wouldn’t achieve our spiritual needs we can’t experience the overall happiness or entire satisfaction in fulfillment of other needs which we fulfill in our life.