God's protection

In our attempt to bring the divine and the human together, we now come to the crucial moment.

Why, in what way does the presence of God (“I am with you”) displace and nullify fear? The divine presence does not directly “attack” fear, but loneliness, the mother of fear.

When man opens interior spaces towards God in faith, in prayer; when he feels that his cold and empty solitude is flooded by the warm divine presence; when he perceives that his helplessness and radical needs are neutralized by the power and tenderness of God; when man comes to experience that God who gives him so much solidity is, moreover and above all, his Father, who wraps him like a cloak and accompanies him day and night, filling him with strength and certainty... then, fear of what? The psalm says: If the Lord is my strength and my salvation, whom shall I fear? If the Lord is the defense of my life, who will make me tremble?

Fear has disappeared because solitude has been inhabited by God. And at this moment, the human being begins to participate in the divine omnipotence. As Paul says: neither life nor death, nothing and no one will be able against me.

We repeat again: if the Almighty is with me, I am omnipotent.

From the book “The meaning of life” by Fr. Ignacio Larrañaga.