One thing did remain constant though. I was never in any doubt of the importance of the question. Some people seem to be able to live life completely indifferent to such things - but I have never been one of those.

Then one day I got completely fed up with the struggle and said to God: “I give up. I’m just going to trust you to get me there somehow”. Since that day I’ve never been tempted to go back to atheism. A few years later I was received into the Catholic Church.

But then an even worse struggle began - the struggle for holiness. It was only when I made a serious attempt to follow Christ, that I discovered the real power of sin. Like Paul, I cried out “Who will deliver me from this body of sin?”

And like Paul I found the answer to be “Thanks be to God, through Jesus Christ Our Lord”. In fact the answer was exactly the same one that pulled me out of atheism into the Church of Christ - “I give up. I’m just going to trust you to get me there somehow”.

Isn’t this the meaning of “There is no condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus”? Christ doesn’t condemn us, he saves us. I was struggling to be good instead of giving up and trusting the Lord to do the work.

1) I’ve been saying the Liturgy of the Hours rather than any of the older breviaries. I don’t much like the Liturgy of the Hours, so this is perhaps a sign that God wants me to conform to the Church as it is, rather than my imagined idea of what it ought to be.

2) I’ve got going again on learning German, Spanish and Portuguese, which are the languages of the countries which I will be going on pilgrimage to next year.

3) I’ve been studying photography - now why God would want me to do that is a mystery to me - but perhaps it is connected with next year’s travels.

4) I’ve been studying the Book of Revelation in the Orthodox Study Bible - looking up all the references.

5) I’ve started reading the Catholic Bible Dictionary (Scott Hahn) from cover to cover - again looking up all the references.

The last time I tried to follow “The Gift of Oneself” I found that my life had become much more spacious and that many of my backlogs of work were cleared up almost immediately. This doesn’t seem to be happening this time. But it’s not really concerning me - whatever God decides to send to me is fine by me.

“Realised that my difficulty with how to do God’s Will was lack of commitment. So swore an oath to God that I would use the Gift of Oneself for the rest of my life and no other method.”

Related posts:

The Gift of Oneself

The Will to Love

Serving God in Peace and Tranquility

What is it like to do God’s Will?

Children of God uphold truth, refuse to compromise with the ways of the world, and give themselves to no other. Like Jesus, these will be persecuted for righteousness’ sake.

The Course booklet defines it thus:

Being persecuted for righteousness’ sake means:

• being willing to stand out from the crowd even if this means being thought odd or subversive;
• speaking and standing up for what is true and right;
• being prepared to go against the flow.

Now there are a lot of resemblances between these two definitions. So why is it that the images conjured up by each of them are so different in my mind? If we take Jesus himself as the model for each of the Beatitudes which description fits him better?

Don’t worry. Do my will. What is it to you what that will is? If I wish to make you mighty, what is that to you? If I wish to humble you, what is that to you? I am everything you could desire. Put your ambitions into learning to know me.

Let me once again make clear to you what you must do.

First, dedicate yourself to doing my will in the morning as you start your day. You establish your INTENT to do my will.

Then you act in the BELIEF that you are doing my will.

Whenever your INTENT or your BELIEF waver, then you must re-affirm them. See your actions throughout the day as my will unfolding.

Now I am well aware that you need a great degree of faith and trust in order to do this. You have to overcome your feelings of frustration and worry that things won’t get done. So that brings me to the third and final part of what you need to do: PERSEVERE. You are always looking for the instant answer. I understand why that is - you need re-assurance that you are on the right path.

The important thing is to follow me one day at a time. Set your intention for the one day only. You have started to follow me today by writing these pages. Continue to follow me for the rest of the day. Just watch my will unfold, trusting that it is indeed my will - how could it be otherwise? As long as you have the intent to do my will all will be well.

Then renew your intention the following day. Take it one day at a time. Do not let anything take you away from it. If you feel that you cannot hear me in the midst of the distractions of daily life then still persevere. If you still have the intent and the faith then you can be assured that all is well whatever the outer circumstances appear to be.

Sadly they seem to have fallen from their former evangelical glory - in fact I have the odd experience of being the most evangelical member of the group. We are studying the Beatitudes, which I am relieved to find out are not the complete challenge to my every assumption that I thought they were, but are simply exhortations to give a bit more money to charity, be nice to other people and make sure we recycle.

I exaggerate a bit of course - but sadly not that much!

Tonight we are doing “Blessed are the merciful” and “Blessed are the pure in heart”. I’m interested to see from the course booklet that “they will see God” means that we will “recognise the possible, and God as the source of all our ‘possibility thinking’”.

Hmm…

In fact I feel that to have any such ideas would be asking for trouble. All I feel is that I need to be open to whatever God asks me to do, minute by minute, hour by hour, day by day.

On Saturday I attended Mass and confession and spent half-an-hour in adoration of the Blessed Sacrament with the intention of gaining a plenary indulgence - to be applied wherever the Lord directed as most fitting. Sunday and today every step of the way I have concentrated on doing God’s will as I have understood it.

Already I can feel the sense of rush and urgency that has recently been filling my life dispersing. God has begun to re-impose order on my chaos - the difference is noticeable in only two days. What is most noticeable to me is a sense of spaciousness and freedom.

Quam magna multitúdo dulcédinis tuæ, Dómine,
quam abscondísti timéntibus te;
perfecísti eis qui sperant in te in conspéctu filiórum hóminum!

O how great is the multitude of thy sweetness, O Lord,
which thou hast hidden for them that fear thee!
Which thou hast wrought for them that hope in thee, in the sight of the sons of men. (Psalm 30: 20)

So please don’t take these as anything more than meditations on my part. They are certainly not intended to be in any way infallible. I believe that I have written nothing contrary to Catholic doctrine or morality. If I have, then I would be pleased to be told of the fact.