NOTES for Mal 3:13-18
The worst thing happens when we begin to count the little time we devote to the Lord and our few good deeds. We begin to argue our case against God: I spent so much time standing in prayer, but You gave me nothing for it; I did such-and-such a good deed for such-and-such a person, which is the same as doing something for You, but You still have not rewarded me. At that moment the distance between us and God becomes monstrously great, because God is Love, while we try to calculate love, bargain with love, and use our displays of love for God, without true love for Him, to buy outward displays of His love. At such moments we do not really believe in God’s love for us; we cease to understand that God does not count, that He loves us all the time. Yet we do not always notice His love; we fail to see in the world around us and in our life His tender smile and His words addressed to us.
And if He truly is silent, might it not be because God does not wish to bargain with us, since He loves us without self-interest?