Wednesday of the Fifth Week - April 9

Daniel 3:14-20, 91-92, 95 John 8:31-42 

The nature of the soul is its inclination to form an attachment to another soul. Each of us is born with a soul that forms attachments to someone else, to the world, and to himself in his course of life. Everyone lives in relation to another. 

Life is centered around attachment. Without attachment, a choice would be aimless, lost, and, above all, empty. We make life choices and decisions based on attachment, whether the end is security and satisfaction or not. In this process, each of us also forms an identity; one that glorifies God or does not. This seems inevitable to me. 

The Jews in the reading have their attachments too. Born as Abraham’s descendants, they form an attachment to their religious community and nation. Having Abraham as their father, they make life choices and decisions based on this attachment and conscientiously follow the Law of Moses. In this process, they confidently identity as “the selected, distinguished, and saved by God.” 

Unlike those in today’s Gospel, I could not find my attachment secure nor was my identity in the world satisfactory. My attachment is burdensome and painful to me, and my identity seems undignified. My life choices and decisions may be wrong. My attachment itself may be wrong. 

Yet, in reality and truth, God has always been in relationship with me, calling me. I respond to his longing for relationship with me through my faith in Jesus Christ. By the Holy Spirit, I am in God’s grace through faith in Christ, who overcame the world in order to set me free from the agony of attachment and my undignified identity in the world. 

As a member of the Body of Christ, I live another day and thereby let Jesus Christ be known to the world. Through him my attachment to the world and my identity in it is transformed and made authentic.

Q: To whom or what do I have an attachment? Do I rejoice in God's attachment to me in the world?

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