"We have given up everything and followed you."
The "everything" that one might be called upon to "give up" in order to follow the Lord may be a relationship or peaceful co-existence with a brother or sister, father or mother. Broken or lost relationships, shunning or silence between family members results in a kind of mourning, a state of bereavement in which one feels as though one has "given up everything" with the loss of happiness God intended through the blessing of family life and relationships.
When a relative or friend invites the believer to attend an event which purports to be a marriage but which in fact is invalid or is the enshrining of an unnatural and sinful relationship constructed around the act of sodomy and therefore a mockery of marriage, the believer is faced with a choice. When the believer must do as God demands and witness to his or her faith by refusing to join in the feasting, the suffering which can result is always a mourning upon the loss of or damage to a natural familial relationship given by God and therefore good and deserving of our care and fostering.
Sometimes, also, this suffering which results from the "giving up of a person" in the relationship at risk because the believer has made a decision displeasing to the other in order to be faithful in witness to God who comes first, is increased by a demonic verbal assault of obscenities on the part of the one who experiences such witness as a personal rejection or social embarrassment.
Such a reaction tragically exposes a lack of authentic love for the believer as a person, in that the one demanding that the believer betray God for the sake of human respect is capable of treating another human being in an abusive and degrading manner, ironically in the name of demanding what they insist is necessary for their own dignity.
When we choose God over persons it is not personal, rather it is an act of integrity consistent with our choice to love God and to put his demands first, before the demands of other loves and other persons. To reject anything contrary to or incompatible with this Divine Love who is also Eternal Truth reflects the demands love imposes that what we do reflects who we are and the love of God which informs our lives. The Giver of love and marriage has the authority to both establish what love and marriage is and also what it is not.
And what will there be for us?
"Amen, I say to you that you who have followed me, in the new age, when the Son of Man is seated on His throne of glory, will yourselves sit on twelve thrones, judging the twelve tribes of Israel. And everyone who has given up houses or brothers or sisters or father or mother or children or lands for the sake of my name will receive a hundred times more, and will inherit eternal life." (Matthew 19: 21-27)
Praised be Jesus Christ!
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A timely message in this age of Relativism. Especially for young people who are still seeking out their vocation. To keep them on the rails and away from being entangled in the web of people who live ungodly lives.
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