Reflections from a Gospel

Great crowds were traveling with Jesus,
and he turned and addressed them,
"If anyone comes to me without hating his father and mother,
wife and children, brothers and sisters,
and even his own life,
he cannot be my disciple.
Whoever does not carry his own cross and come after me
cannot be my disciple.
Which of you wishing to construct a tower
does not first sit down and calculate the cost
to see if there is enough for its completion?
Otherwise, after laying the foundation
and finding himself unable to finish the work
the onlookers should laugh at him and say,
'This one began to build but did not have the resources to finish.'
Or what king marching into battle would not first sit down
and decide whether with ten thousand troops
he can successfully oppose another king
advancing upon him with twenty thousand troops?
But if not, while he is still far away,
he will send a delegation to ask for peace terms.
In the same way,
anyone of you who does not renounce all his possessions
cannot be my disciple."- LK 14:25-33

                

              The gospel  above brought a lot of realizations in my mind while I was listening to the priest early this morning. That everytime we encounter trials, we tend to focus on our own self and eventually we became selfish. Why selfish? Because we tend to forget other people around us. Those people who are experiencing more than the dilemma that we have. This sometimes happen to me especially that I live independently. I pity myself most of the time because I have no one to talk to and it takes time for me to recover from such pain. But I am still fortunate that of all those trials and difficulties that I've experienced before, I still remain positive for a wonderful future. 

             
The priest is quiet true that if we'll just look at the cross, our sufferings are incomparable to what Jesus had gone through. That we should face every problem and learn from it to make us a better person not a bitter one. In life, it is important that if ever we encounter any trials, we should not look down but look up and call Jesus. No other name.