Have you met people who very often say like these? “Oh, the Lord helped me today finish early my work.” “I couldn’t stand the person without the Holy Spirit’s assistance.” “I was upset yesterday, but Jesus heard my prayer and gave me peace in my heart.” And so on. These people seem to find the Lord in every event. And they attribute all their successes, accomplishments, and delights to the Lord. It seems that the presence or providence of God explains everything for them. But a man of reason and science might feel aversion to these people and despise them as naïve and gullible simpletons. He believes reason and science can explain or will explain all phenomena. For him, religion remains a primitive method to explain the world and man, though it is a highly complex mental work of symbols and rituals.

To Which group do you find yourself close to or belong? Even if I always practised the faith, I wanted to analyze the world with reason and science. I scorned pious people for their presumed ignorance of science and naïve hopefulness.

But from some time on, I slowly recognized it as a divine gift to perceive the Lord’s presence in our daily life and the world. It is a superior way to understand life and the world because only the Lord’s presence and his providence can reveal the ultimate purposes of all human and natural phenomena. Then, we understand their meanings. Modern man has gathered much scientific knowledge of man and the world. But he finds his heart empty of meaning and falls into depression. He can explain life phenomena on the molecular level. However, he cannot find the purpose of life and asks for euthanasia when pains overwhelm him.

“Through Jesus Christ, let us continually offer a sacrifice of praise to God, that is, the fruit of lips that confess his name.” The Letter to the Hebrews invites us to give praise to the Lord. How can we offer praise unless we find our life meaningful? And how can we find our life truly meaningful unless we see the purpose of life? And how can we recognize the purpose of life unless we see our life with the eye of the Lord? And how can we share the eye of the Lord unless we recognize his presence in our life?

I pray that my Lord removes the blind of my human pride and reveals his presence so that I may praise him with a joyful heart.