Aladdin is one of my all-time favorite Disney movies for many reasons. Two of my favorite parts are when Aladdin stretches out his hand and asks Jasmine “Do you trust me?” The first time he asks, Jasmine is in a predicament and does not have many choices so out of desperation says yes and lets this complete stranger take charge of her life to protect her. The second time Aladdin asks this same question he is in disguise but through this one act of reaching out his hand, Jasmine is able to recognize that this is the same person that protected and guided her to safety last time and is able to trust in him completely again. I’m not saying we should trust a random “street rat” that we meet in the city, but how many of us have the same complete trust in God that Jasmine had in Aladdin when she agrees to jump off a building with him?
Trust in God. How many of us really do this? When we say the Apostles' Creed in Mass we say we believe...we believe in Jesus...we believe in the Holy Spirit...we believe in the resurrection...we believe in life after death...but is believing and trusting the same thing? That may seem like a silly question, of course they mean something different but for me personally it took many years of believing in God to finally trust in Him. In fact, it took five years of having a very strong relationship with God to finally realize that I had zero trust in Him. I would pray every day and go to daily Mass. I believed all the teachings of the Church, I believed that if I followed Christ's commandments then I would be able to be with Him one day in heaven, but honestly, I didn't trust Him with my life at all.
I am one of those people that is a perfectionist that needs to know and plan every single detail of my life. I do not like being in situations that I do not know the right next step, so I tend to plan things way in advance. I am one of those people that needs to plan an entire conversation in my head before I can even say hi to someone (even though the conversation never goes as I planned anyways). My career I even had planned since I was four years old, as I knew I wanted to be a parochial school teacher and have six kids (and what all their names would be).
As people grow older, they start to become more concerned with their future. Young adults especially start coming to that point in their life where they realize that the real world is coming quickly. As they graduate high school and college, they start to wonder if they will be able to find a job and if they will ever find “The One.” In college, I too felt those fears of a typical college student about planning my life after college and, as always, trying to plan my future.
One day, my dear friend sent me a beautiful prayer that I needed to hear called“Be Satisfied With Me” by St. Anthony of Padua:
Everyone longs to give themselves completely to someone, to have a deep soul relationship with another, to be loved thoroughly and exclusively.
But to a Christian, God says, “No not until you are satisfied, fulfilled and content with being loved by Me alone, with giving yourself totally and unreservedly to Me. With having an intensely personal and unique relationship with Me alone.
Discovering that only in Me is your satisfaction to be found, will you be capable of the perfect human relationship, that I have planned for you. You will never be united to another until you are united with Me. Exclusive of anyone or anything else. Exclusive of any other desires or longings. I want you to stop planning, to stop wishing, and allow Me to give you the most thrilling plan existing…one you cannot imagine. I want you to have the best. Please allow Me to bring it to you.
You just keep watching Me, expecting the greatest things. Keep experiencing the satisfaction that I am. Keep listening and learning the things that I tell you. Just wait, that’s all. Don’t be anxious, don’t worry. Don’t look around at the things others have gotten or that I have given them. Don’t look around at the things you think you want, just keep looking off and away up to Me, or you’ll miss what I want to show you. And then, when you’re ready, I’ll surprise you with a love far more wonderful than you could dream of. You see, until you are ready, and until the one I have for you is ready, I am working even at this moment to have both of you ready at the same time. Until you are both satisfied exclusively with Me and the life I prepared for you, you won’t be able to experience the love that exemplified your relationship with Me. And that is perfect love.
And dear one, I want you to have this most wonderful love, I want you to see in the flesh a picture of your relationship with Me. And to enjoy materially and concretely the everlasting union of beauty, perfection and love that I offer you with Myself. Know that I love you utterly. I AM God. Believe it and be satisfied.
I immediately fell in love with this prayer and continued to pray it often. A year later, one particular line started to really stick out to me, "I want you to stop planning and stop wanting, and allow Me to give you the most thrilling plan ever existing–one that you cannot even imagine." This one line made me start to think. Does this mean I'm not actually supposed to be planning and worrying about my future? But if I didn't plan, then how would I ever end up where I wanted to be?
These thoughts were in my mind for a while when one day I was driving in my car and I decided to turn off my radio and just pray to God for a bit. We had a fabulous, long conversation and then at the end, one Bible verse was in my head: "Behold, I am the handmaid of the Lord. May it be done to me according to YOUR word." It was a prayer. It was a prayer that God wanted me to pray to Him. It was a prayer that would tell God that His will and divine plan for me came before my own wants. I couldn't pray it. I tried and tried, until finally I said it out loud. It was only a simple Bible verse I had heard a million times before so I was confused. Why was it so difficult to say this one simple line?
I realized it was because I did not have my trust in God. I was so caught up in life with what I wanted, that I forgot to ever ask God what He wanted from me. Once I finally stopped planning my own life, I could finally listen to the plans that God had in stored for me. I could finally start living as the prayer said "a more thrilling plan than I could have ever imagined." Once I finally stopped planning, I could relax because it no longer was about IF all MY plans would come true, but instead just waiting for the beautiful plan God had in stored for me to happen.
Now that I had made my commitment to God to do His will, it was time for me to start living it. Many times I would think “Oh I would love to serve God by doing this!” Then “this” would not happen. Instead, God would throw something completely different at me. Of course, no matter what He threw at me, I always said yes. To my surprise, the more I said yes to things I never planned on doing, the more skills and talents I naturally had seemed to fit perfectly for the task I told God yes too. My life started to make more sense as I could put my gifts to use to serve God.
One major time this happened to me was getting my first professional job. As stated earlier, I knew I wanted to teach in a Catholic elementary school since the age of four. I thought that since God put that desire in my heart that it was my calling. I knew that their salary was less than public school teachers but I did not care because this was how I was going to serve God for my entire life. I worked hard to graduate college and prepare a perfect resume so that I could finally have my dream job. I went to the interview with a nun and…she tore me to shreds telling me I would never make a good teacher. Of course, I was heartbroken. I had thought that was God’s plan for me but I was wrong. After much time in adoration praying for God to lead me to the place He needed me to be, I ended up at a job that I did not even apply for. Once I got the job, I knew I was in the place God needed me that year. He used my individual talents to serve the people around me and gave me many eye open experiences that would help me continue to do His will in the future.
Sometimes it is hard to let go of dreams and ideas we put into our heads about what we want or even what we think God wants. The important thing to do is keep going. Keep striving to serve God and discerning His will in your life. There never comes a time in your life where you will finally no longer need to discern. There are always more plans He may have in stored for you.
Many people are afraid of that word “discern.” Maybe they fear that means not doing what they want, not being able to have the type of life and family they always dreamed of, or they just do not understand what it means to discern. Discernment is simply being open to and praying about God’s will for us in our lives. It can be discerning your vocation to the religious, single, or married life as well as you can discern other things, no matter how small, that God wants you to do in your life. This could be jobs, projects, or ways to serve others. No matter if you are 18 or 81 take the next couple of minutes to sit in silence and listen. Tell God that you are open to do His will whatever it may be. Try not to tell God how you want to serve Him but just sit and listen to see if He has any specific task for you to do whether it be in the near or far future. If God stretched out His hand right now and asked you “Do you trust me?” would you be able to say yes to whatever crazy path He takes you on? You never know what amazing adventure He might have planned for you to do next. Just remember the words of St. Teresa of Avila as you discern:
“Christ has no body but yours,
No hands, no feet on earth but yours,
Yours are the eyes with which he looks
Compassion on this world,
Yours are the feet with which he walks to do good,
Yours are the hands, with which he blesses all the world.
コメント