"God Problems" - 5th Sunday of Ordinary Time Homily

A youth group last Sunday, they were playing Christian music in the background while the teens played a game.

One of the songs I heard was called God Problems and said that there are problems that only God can fix.

Neither power nor might but the Spirit of Living God.

And I thought of us.

We all have problems that only God can fix.

It's a good exercise of humility to recognize that.

And I'm truly blessed to work with so many of you on your God problems.

You bring them to me and smart move to ask a priest to help implore God to fix the problems for God to act.

The fishermen who had become apostles had a problem.

They fished all night and caught nothing.

God stepped in and fixed their problem to the tune of a great number of fish in the catch.

He did something that only he can do, to create something out of nothing.

And to provide is only he can provide, from nothing to an abundance.

And I truly hope that you repeat the refrain of Abraham.

God will provide.

that he will provide in your situation as only he can.

God works miracles in nature, in human beings, healings, because He has power over nature.

We don't.

He has power over human nature for anyone who's open to him.

So he can change hearts.

He can change lives.

St.

Paul attested to this.

He said, by the grace of God, I am what I am.

This is Paul, not Popeye.

But the grace of God is the most powerful stuff on earth.

It changed Saul's life, identity, even his name to Paul.

We know that God is Isaiah at us.

God's domain is forgiveness of sins.

Only God can forgive sins and purge sin and remove wickedness.

He can change vice to virtue.

So Isaiah and Paul and ultimately Peter were witnesses to his power and fixing those problems in their lives to the point they said, send me out to be part of this work.

part of the God problem work.

He's called me as well.

And like Isaiah, I'm like, send me.

Because I've seen his grace in my life change me.

And I want as many people as possible to experience this same grace.

in the work of God's problems.

And I've seen him here change families, change marriages, relationships, work situations, all up and down the spectrum.

And you know it when you see it.

Work with a family right now who's going through something really tough.

Really tough situation they brought to me a few months ago.

And last month we had reasons to hope that maybe it's getting better.

So we kind of met and said let's hope for this in the next month.

And we met yesterday to review the past month.

And all that stuff happened and even more.

It was incredible.

God isn't always like quickest to act, but sometimes it just pops into your life suddenly, powerfully, quickly.

It's the grace of God.

It's incredible.

All these sayings, the catch of great number of fish that I'm mentioning have happened here.

But I'm also acutely aware of families who have come to me with their God problems and he still hasn't fixed them.

He hasn't acted yet.

So what I do in that situation, I get on my knees in his presence, in adoration, and I plead with him.

I beg him.

As a friend of mine says, I cry like a little kid for you.

It would seem that the fix is right there.

Why aren't you fixing it yet?

Why aren't you acting?

It seems like we know what you should do.

And in that moment...

I think we realize that's exactly where he wants us.

Sometimes he waits to fix and to act, to see our humility and acknowledging his power as only he can act and fix.

and to plead with them.

There's great virtue in that.

There's great virtue in pleading with him to fix and act as only he can.