Becoming F.A.T.

Fr. John Corapi, in a homily I heard yesterday on the radio reminded us, as followers of Christ, of the importance of being faithful and available. As I listened, it brought to mind a talk I heard several years ago in which the speaker added a third quality: our teachability. We must learn to become F.A.T.: that is, Faithful, Available, and Teachable.
If we are to follow our Lord Jesus obediently, then we must do so daily, even moment to moment, in every relationship, encounter with others, and every circumstance of our day-to-day lives, allowing His Spirit to direct and control our lives. Our task is to seek Him and to faithfully follow when, where, and how He leads.
Key to our ability to follow Him faithfully is our availability: opening ourselves to Him and allowing ourselves to be completely at His disposal to do with as He wills.
Finally, as we empty ourselves of our own self-will, we become less as He becomes greater, as St. John the Baptist proclaimed. We, like our Lord Jesus, must live to serve others rather than seeking to be served. As we conform ourselves more and more to His will, our lives are transformed so we, little by little, reflect His image in us more clearly until it is "no longer I who live, but Christ Who lives in me" (Galatians 2:20).
This process of being transformed is His work within us as we yield ourselves to the working of His Spirit within us. As we do so in serving one another, we become His Love outpoured to others. Only as we serve one another in the mundane details of our daily lives are those who don't know Him able to perceive that He is present and at work in the world. For truly, we are His Hands and Feet in this world. As a former pastor of mine was fond of saying, "You may be the only Bible that someone reads, the only Christ that another sees".