Note: On Tuesdays and some Sundays, you can find me at Your Daily Tripod, owned by my friend TonyD. A longer version of the post below appears there.
Jesus said to them, “A prophet is not without honor except in his native place and among his own kin and in his own house.” So he was not able to perform any mighty deed there, apart from curing a few sick people by laying his hands on them. He was amazed at their lack of faith. (Mark 6:4-6, NABRE)
Think about it: Jesus, the Son of the Omnipotent Father, a member of the Holy Trinity. And yet, a few 
people who don’t believe Him manage to shut down His power. How can that be? I mean, can’t Jesus do anything He desires?
Not if we don’t want Him to. The invitation is still there, of course. It’s always there. But we are always free to turn Him down. And sometimes, we don’t even see that we’re doing it:
- We turn Him down when we hate rather than love our persecutors.
- We turn Him down when we cut out of our lives family and friends whose political views aren’t in harmony with ours, ignoring all that we have in common.
- We turn Him down when we say no to volunteer activities that present themselves because we’d rather be home binge-watching a series.
- We turn Him down when we can hear Him knocking at our soul, suggesting that we let Him in to help us, but we ignore Him because we’re just fine with being a victim, being an abuser, being a gossip, being judgmental.
We can come up with all kinds of excuses for not letting Him perform mighty deeds. His mighty deeds always involve change, and change is difficult. Change, especially spiritual change, costs us financially, emotionally, and mentally. But saying yes is the only way to grow closer to Him. Saying yes, even amid all the reasons we think we should say no or not right now, opens us to His grace.
