God's Will
Now this is something i have thought about for a long time and have been trying to discern for a long time as well. How many times have we all heard from someone "well if its God will then go for it". Maybe you have not heard that phrase as much as I have growing up in a strong catholic family but for conversations sake you at least have heard it once becuase you just read it here. Early on in my younger years I never thought about it much and always assumed God's will would just be revealed to me when I was old enough that it could actually matter. Unfortantly as I believe most people realize is that finding God's will is not that easy. Now that I am honestly searching for the almighty's will in my life I find that I spend most of my time running into a stone wall headfirst, falling down only to get back up and do it again. I remember spending hours on hours in prayer or at least an attempt at prayer yelling at God saying "okay just tell me, tell me where to go and ill go. Fine God you want me to make it easier for you. I have two options. I can go to the right or I can go to the left." Nothing. Absolutly nothing. A few days later I was reading a book titled No Man is an island by a monk whose name I cant remember for the life of me and I read something along the lines of (and I power phrase) "God is not looking for men who do certian things or live a specific way but men who are a specific way." I thought about that for awhile and then I suddenly felt a peace. God was telling me that for now all I had to do was desire him and He would take care of the rest. About a chapter later in this monks book I read just what I was looking for. The monk was asking God the same question I had been asking Him for the last few months. He told God "I have two options which way do I go" and he heard God tell him "I am with you" but the monk asks again "but which way do I go" and again he only hears God say "I am with you". Thats when I realized that so many choices in our lives are really for us to make. The key is God will be with us in either way. He could careless if you are hole digger or a doctor. He only asks that you desire Him and give Him your heart.
I picked a good day to read your little post. great insight guapo! this monk knows his stuff. I think many people spend alot of time looking for a specific direction including myself. I think this is partly due to society pushing us along its fast paced bullet train, haulting for no station...you are just expected to jump on and get swept away in the world. Unfortunately, prayer is far from this mentality and it requires vigilant patience and peace of mind to not overlook the bigger picture: God and his love for us.
ReplyDeleteIt reminds of someone who said "I live my life to get to Heaven." To me that seems selfish. Ive always thought that we should live our lives to love God and if we get to Heaven, that would be sweet. Similarly, looking for a specific answer to do God's will may lead us to find it, but loving God will naturally lead us to the answer indirectly.
However, this requires us to focus our prayer lives which takes time, patience, and peace of heart and mind. And as I've said, thats very hard to do in the high-strung world we live in!
May the Peace of Christ be with us all!
hmmmm.... there is much wisdom here, but my heart is still troubled. As Yoda reminded us, society (and life) comes at you fast. I understand that God will never leave me, and indeed only wants to be closer and closer to me, but a man must make decisions. I believe God does care what we do, if only because we care. We should not be anxious, but I can't help but follow the train of thought: God knows best, so I should ask His advice. I can't hear his advice, right now, so now I'm worried I won't make the best decision, etc. Back to square one. O well.
ReplyDeleteI initially desired to disagree heartily with the original post, but the more I thought about it, the more I realized the truth embedded in El Guapo’s words. Despite this, I think that what you say is true only because of a deeper truth. On the surface of your words, it would seem that God’s ONLY plan for us is to love Him --- there is nothing specific beyond this. I agree and disagree. How? Let me quote the infamous (more than famous) Kierkegaard:
ReplyDelete“Be that self which one truly is.”
Huh? Let me explain. It is true: all we need to do is love God, pray, and get to know Him personally and actively. However, in doing this, we are becoming more and more who we were created to be. To use Kierkegaard’s words, we are “[becoming] that self which [we truly are].” The more we pray and seek to know God and love God, the more we are knowing ourselves ; and the more this happens, the more our decisions and choices will be in line with what we were created to be.
So God does have a plan for our lives. Does it involve anything specific outside of praying and loving Him? Yes and no. No in the sense that knowing and loving God is the only REAL call; but yes in the sense that if we are knowing and loving God, I think we will find out what he has really made us to be. In the end, if we see no writing on the wall nor hear any angelic voices, the decision is ours; but the decision will be affected by our prayer, our personal knowledge of God, and our personal knowledge of ourselves. We can trust ourselves to our instinct only because we have already entrusted our lives --- our reason, emotion, future --- to seeking to know and love God.
Are some men better entrusted to be priests and others fathers? Yes. Will God give you grace whichever you choose? Yes. But prayer and discernment, even if it doesn’t result in God text-messaging us our vocations, will lead us to make our own decision --- but this decision will be embedded in our own knowledge of ourselves and what God has called us to be.