- Our God Is a God of Journeys
- Stop Seeking God’s Will
- How I Became a Hobo Missionary
- Your Body Affects Your Discernment
- You Don’t Need a Sign from God
- You Are Called to Be a Bride of Christ
- God’s Will Isn’t in the “What If”
- You Don’t Have to Be Afraid of God’s Will
- Following When You Can’t See Him
- You Can’t Irrevocably Ruin God’s Plan for You
- Love God and then Act
Our God Is a God of Journeys
10 years ago today I entered the convent. I quit my job, said goodbye to everyone I loved, and gave away everything I owned.
9 years and 9 months ago I left the convent.
Leaving was harder.
The whole time I was there, trying to ignore how wrong it all felt, how hopeless I was (a good sign something’s not God’s will), there was a fear: not just that I would fail to persevere in God’s will but that I would leave and everybody would think I had failed.
Leaving gave me greater joy than anything since I entered. Still, it was awful. I felt confused, ashamed, misunderstood. I thought I must have discerned wrong, that the search that had left me with half a dozen closed doors and one open one wasn’t thorough enough.
It was a long time before I realized that God can call you to enter religious life but not to make vows. He can call you to med school knowing you won’t graduate. He can call you to date someone you’re never going to marry. Because our God is a God of journeys, not of destinations. He’s the only destination he’s concerned about, his Sacred Heart and his loving arms in eternity.
He called me to enter a beautiful community that I’m deeply glad not to be a part of now. Maybe so I would become committed to silent prayer, or learn that I wasn’t called to religious life, or be in a grocery store in a funny outfit one day in 2009 because somebody needed it. I don’t need to know why.
I know that God was at work when I entered and when I left. He was at work when I explored consecrated virginity and when I started dating again. He was at work when I quit hoboing for the perfect job and when that job dramatically disappeared and I got back on the road.
He’s working in your life right now, too. In your unemployment, disability, infertility, loneliness, divorce, addiction, uncertainty. He’s working in the false starts and the cringeworthy mistakes.
Discernment isn’t about getting things right, about figuring out the missing piece that turns your struggle into happily-ever-after. Discernment is about following the Lord, even–especially–if you have no idea where he’s leading you.
10 years later, I’m glad I entered. I’m glad I left. I’m glad I followed.
Stop Seeking God’s Will
Want to hear my best discernment advice?
Stop seeking God’s will.
Really. So many of us seek God’s will above all–even above God.
We use him as a Magic 8-Ball, going to prayer only to figure things out and not to worship. We treat his will like a scavenger hunt set up by a sadistic leprechaun who sends us signs and then laughs (or rages) when we miss them. We obsess over ourselves and our skills and our desires and our future and call it prayer.
Stop seeking God’s will and start seeking God. Because if you run after the Lord you will find yourself in his will.
I spend a lot of time making decisions–with no home and no steady employment, there are a lot of decisions to be made. Want to know how I do it?
I spend serious time in silent prayer every day. Then I live my life.
I trust that God is either going to form my heart to desire what he desires, or he’s going to stop me before I do something dumb, or he’s going to fix it afterward. I try not to lose peace over confusion or uncertainty, because I know that God delights in me. If I’m earnestly trying to live in his will, he’s not going to punish me for getting it wrong.
It’s entirely possible that I’m going to go to my judgment and find God standing baffled before me, wondering why on earth I thought I ought to be homeless and unemployed for the sake of the kingdom. There’s a reason people don’t live this way, and perhaps I’ve gotten it totally wrong and I was really supposed to be an accountant in Idaho or something.
Still, I expect to see pleasure mixed in with the bafflement. “Oh, but honey, well done! It was a weird life you chose, but you tried so hard. You got it wrong, but you sure were seeking me.”
I think he delights in my efforts, however ridiculous they might be, and I find great peace in that. I can’t mess up discernment so badly that I ruin his plan for me, because ultimately his plan is for my holiness. If I’m seeking him, he’ll accomplish that, whatever odd paths it might take.
So if you find yourself stressing out about figuring out God’s will, stop seeking God’s will and start seeking God. Spend serious time in silent prayer every day and trust that he loves you. He’ll do the rest.
How I Became a Hobo Missionary
My name is Meg and I’m a hobo missionary. After 5 years teaching religion I quit my job, packed everything into my car, and started driving. For the last 7 years, I’ve been living out of my car (no really, I don’t have a home) going all around the world to give talks and retreats and tell people how much God loves them. I’ve been to 50 states and 25 countries in the past 7 years and driven 230,000 miles.
How on earth does a person make a decision like that?
I loved teaching. And God’s grace was all over it–as bad as my temper is, I only got angry 2 times in 4 1/2 years in the classroom.
The trouble is I taught for 5.
And that last semester the grace was withdrawn. I was ticked all the time. Now I’m not saying when things get hard, run. I’m saying if things are supernaturally hard, pay attention.
So I prayed about leaving and I felt a lot of peace. And then I thought maybe I should pray about not teaching anymore and felt a resounding peace.
I was not thrilled.
What was I supposed to do? Teaching was all I’d ever wanted to do. But a priest friend of mine said, “You’re good at public speaking. Why don’t you do that?”
Cute, Father. You can’t just quit life and become a public speaker.
But I took it to prayer and God said, “Tell me why not.”
I don’t hear voices when I pray. (Some people do, and that’s great.) But I couldn’t come up with a single reason not to move into my car.
Now, if you’re naturally a bum on the couch and you think being homeless and unemployed is a good idea, it’s not. Get a job. But I’m very type-A and achievement-oriented, so when it seemed like a good idea to move into my car, I figured it had to be from God. If you find yourself drawn to something that’s really contrary to your natural inclinations, you have to pay attention to that. So I quit my job and hit the road.
tldr:
It may be God’s call if:
1. everything external is the same and the internal changes.
2. it gives you deep peace.
3. you find yourself drawn to something that you wouldn’t naturally desire.
(None of this works if you’re not in a state of grace. Go to confession.)
Your Body Affects Your Discernment
Some practical discernment advice:
Before silent prayer (and thus coffee) became a daily habit of mine, I found myself starting a school day with a killer headache and 3 hours of sleep. So I grabbed a large iced coffee and took some excedrin before a morning of proctoring exams.
Ten minutes into the first period, I was anxious and jittery and miserable like I’d never been before. Something was *wrong*, I could tell. Maybe I had committed a mortal sin? Maybe I needed to quit my job? Maybe someone was in danger and the Spirit was trying to tell me? I knew peace was a sign of being in God’s will, so I figured my anxiety could only be a sign of the opposite.
Then I remembered my excess of caffeine that morning and realized: I was high.
I wasn’t in a state of sin, I wasn’t in the wrong career, it wasn’t time to end a relationship. I was just exhausted and over-caffeinated. All I needed to do was wait it out and get some sleep that night.
It’s one of the most important lessons in discernment I’ve learned: your body matters. You can’t discern properly in a state of sin and you can’t discern properly in a state of exhaustion or illness or oxytocin euphoria.
Discernment isn’t just a matter of the supernatural but of the natural. So if you’re feeling a lot of anxiety about a particular situation (engagement, grad program, job) and you think God’s trying to get your attention, start by looking at your life.
-Are you overtired?
-Are you doing what you need to be emotionally healthy–eating well, exercising, getting time to yourself?
-Is your life out of balance?
-Is there something that happened that you haven’t yet processed in prayer, something miserable that’s coloring your vision of everything?
-Are you coming up on an anniversary of something traumatic?
-Do you need to meet with a therapist to try to figure out all of the above?
Sometimes what seems like a need for a major life change is just a need for a nap, an iron supplement, a counselor, or a break from your kickball league. If you’ve got a big decision to make, start by getting things sorted out on the natural level and you’ll be in a healthy place to consider where the Lord’s trying to lead.
You Don’t Need a Sign from God
For a while in college I was paralyzed by the need to know I was doing God’s will, incapable of making any decision without divine edict.
At one point I was in a marvelous choir whose rehearsal schedule was making me miserable; truly, I cried every time I had to go. But I don’t quit things, so I kept going.
Finally, to appease my beleaguered roommate (and because they were popular among my friends), I did a novena to St. Thérèse to ask if I should quit choir. I asked for a white rose if I was supposed to quit. I figured I’d be safe–I hadn’t once seen roses in college.
On day 9, there it was. A rose.
A yellow rose.
I promise you, Jesus heard my prayer–a prayer so obsessed with certainty and unconcerned with surrender–and said (with some frustration), “I could give you a white rose if I wanted to. I don’t want to rule your life by botanical memo. Just make your own decision.”
It was a theme in my life at the time: the repeated reminder that God made us free. Yes, his will for us is where our greatest joy and peace will ultimately be, but he didn’t make us puppets or slaves, he made us children. And he trusts us to make our own choices.
Spend time in silent prayer every day. Receive the Sacraments. Get a spiritual director. But then *choose*.
Don’t wait for a sign, don’t assume God’s plan will just happen to you, don’t ignore the need to act and join the Order of Perpetual Discerners. Do something.
You don’t need a sign from God to ask a woman out, to call a vocation director, to apply for a new job, to move to a new town. You need to place it before the Lord, ask him to form your heart, and then make 👏 a 👏 decision 👏.
Now for those discerning a vocation, those for whom there is some desire for priesthood or consecrated life (even if not a consuming one):
You don’t discern in a vacuum. Call the vocation director. Go on a come and see. Heck, just ask to enter! Worst comes to worst, you get a free 6-month retreat, complete with good formation and the space to discern without being surrounded by pretty girls in chapel veils. Enter to discern, enter with open hands, but give it a shot.
You can’t live your life waiting for divine directives. Just act.
(And yes, I quit the choir. If something to which you haven’t irrevocably committed and that isn’t particularly good for you is making you miserable, you don’t need divine revelation to tell you to take a break.)
You Are Called to Be a Bride of Christ
Let me take some of the guesswork out of discernment for you:
You are called to be a bride of Christ.
Everyone is. It’s God’s deepest desire that you give yourself to him completely in love in the wedding feast of heaven. He tells us this in Hosea, the Song of Songs, Revelation. In the Gospels, where Jesus comes as bridegroom. In Isaiah, where he says, “As a bridegroom rejoices in his bride, so shall your God rejoice in you.”
So if you’re entering religious life, it’s not to discern if he’s calling you to be his bride. He is. You’re trying to discover *how* he wants to marry you.1) If you’ve left religious life, it’s not because God broke up with you. It’s because he wanted to marry you in a different way, in a different community or through the love of an earthly husband or through years of wandering and wondering, walking down the aisle to receive your bridegroom in the Eucharist until finally you meet him in eternity.
You’re called to be a priest.
Every Christian is, by virtue of our baptism where we were anointed priest, prophet, and king.
So if you’re in seminary, it’s to discern what your priesthood and spiritual fatherhood should look like. If you discern out, it’s not because God doesn’t want you, because you’re not good enough or strong enough; it’s because there’s a different fatherhood he needs from you, a different life of sacrificial love, a different witness of radical holiness in the world.
You’re called to be a missionary. For some, that looks like a ridiculous hobo life; for others, it’s a witness offered at library storytime or while training for a marathon.
You’re called to be a saint. But the devil wants to convince you that if you live an ordinary life it’s because you’re rejected, unloved, found wanting. That’s not the Gospel. And when we let anxiety about earning or losing God’s love invade our discernment, we act not in freedom but in desperation.
Your vocation isn’t something you’re awarded for having been good enough. He delights in you, just as he does in the greatest Saints. Ignore the lie that God doesn’t want you because you didn’t get a flashy call. You are a bride and an evangelist and a saint-in-the-making. You are loved.
God’s Will Isn’t in the “What If”
Your circumstances aren’t a hindrance to God’s will. Even the ones that are your fault.
The idea that we might discern wrong is paralyzing, leaving us stuck for years, unable to commit to anything.
The idea that we *have* discerned wrong is worse. We think, “Oh, I could be a saint if only I hadn’t made the mistake of marrying that person, having that baby, taking out those loans.” We become bitter, trapped in what ifs.
And yeah. Your life might be better if you hadn’t married that guy, gone to that party, sent that email. Maybe holiness would have come easier.
Maybe it wouldn’t.
It doesn’t actually matter.
God’s will isn’t in the “what if.” God’s will is in the now.
Maybe you shouldn’t have married her. But you did. And so you stay. Unless there’s abuse, you stay. And even if abuse or addiction or adultery means you have to leave, you don’t sit around wishing you’d married someone else. You can’t change the past.
Maybe motherhood wasn’t God’s “perfect will” for you (a concept that’s rather dangerous when it so easily becomes an obsession) but it’s God’s will for you now.
Maybe you ran from what you knew was God’s call and you can’t take it back. Be a saint here. Choose him now.
Sometimes you’re on the wrong path and it’s not too late. You can break an engagement or cancel an ordination or pull your kids out of school. You can change the now.
But some things can’t be changed. Maybe it’s your fault and maybe it’s really not. But it does nobody any good to obsess over the past, wishing we could take it back.
How can you be holy NOW? In this marriage, with this unplanned pregnancy, after this layoff, in this heartbreak?
Grieve the life you wish you had. Mourn and lament at the foot of the Cross, below your broken Savior weeping for you. Then put your suffering into the wound in his Sacred Heart and get to work.
There is no “if only” in the life of one whose master raises the dead. If unchangeable circumstances make something impossible, it’s not God’s will. Figure out where holiness lies for you *now*, with your passel of kids or chronic illness or PTSD or GED or ADD. God works in and through your circumstances. Be the saint he’s calling you to be now.
You Don’t Have to Be Afraid of God’s Will
You don’t have to be afraid of God’s will.
I know he sometimes calls people to scary things. (Living in a car here. Believe me, I know.) I know that many of the Saints suffered terribly. I know that often it seems as though the only way to be holy is to give up everything that makes you happy.
Here’s the thing:
God loves you.
Not smiley-face-bumper-sticker love. Reckless, fierce, tender, consuming, unconditional, life-changing, sacrificial love. The call to follow him is an invitation to take up your cross, but it’s also an invitation to a love affair beyond all imagining. And while the crosses we’re given may be heavy, they’re formed to fit our shoulders, to strengthen us as we walk alongside him bearing a burden so much smaller than his.
So yeah, if you follow Jesus, you’re going to suffer.
If you don’t follow Jesus, you’re going to suffer.
I’m sorry, but regardless of what you do, you’re going to suffer. It’s the human condition. The question is whether your suffering has meaning, whether you’re loved and held in your suffering or left feeling abandoned and alone.
God isn’t constructing a call that will crush you, though it may seem that way at times. He’s a good Father and he loves you wildly. So the vocation he’s given you is for your good, for your joy, for your holiness, for your salvation.
That doesn’t mean that if you’re in God’s will you’ll be happy all the time. That’s never promised us in this vale of tears. And it doesn’t mean that he’ll give you everything your heart desires, if only you check all the boxes and do what he’s asked. He loves us too much to give us everything we want.
It means that you don’t have to be afraid of his will. He’s not out to get you. He offers peace and joy in some measure in this world and perfectly in the next.
So trust him. Give him space to speak in your life. Let him be the one to tell you who you are. Stop running from his call, stop hiding behind busyness and using prayers to hold him at arm’s length because you’re afraid of what he might say if you’re silent. Be still before him. Ask him to show you what it is that he loves you.
If you let him in, if you let him lead, you will not regret it.
Following When You Can’t See Him
How do you follow when you can’t see that he’s leading you? Or even that he’s with you?
I know a lot of you are hurting, feeling abandoned in your pain. I know you wonder why God has allowed it, when he’ll deliver you, how he could possibly work this mess for good.
They’re natural, those questions. But they’re the wrong questions. When we’re lost or suffering or alone, the question is not “When?” or “How?” or even “Why?” The question is “Who?”
Who is this God we worship? If he’s a puppetmaster or a strategist, messing with our lives with no regard for our hearts, we owe him neither trust nor love.
But if he’s the God who is love, the God who calls Israel his darling, the God who was stripped naked, beaten to a pulp, and nailed to a cross to die (and then rise) on the off chance that you’d love him back, we have to learn to say, “The God who loves me is at work in this. I don’t know what he’s doing. I don’t know why. But I know I’m not alone.”
There’s nothing wrong with wanting to see where God is in your pain or wondering when you’ll be released. The danger is when you’re seeking those answers because you don’t trust that God is who he said he is: the Lord and Lover of souls.
When people are suffering, I don’t often have answers. I can begin to see the way their pain is working to make them holier and happier—ultimately. But in the moment it doesn’t feel like enough. And so I find myself saying, “I don’t know. I don’t know what God’s doing, but I know who he is. I know that he’s for you. I know that he loves you more than you can imagine. I know that there’s nothing he wouldn’t do for you. And so if he’s not stepping in to save you, I have to trust not in what I can see and understand but in who I know him to be. He is yours and you are his. There is nothing to fear.”
As you struggle to follow him through whatever situation is trying your soul right now, take this to prayer: Who is God? What has he done in the past to reveal his power, his mercy, his love? What has he done in salvation history and what has he done in your life?
When we remember what he’s done, we understand better who he is. And if we know who he is, we can trust him. We can follow.
You Can’t Irrevocably Ruin God’s Plan for You
You can’t irrevocably ruin God’s plans for you.
Sure, maybe you’ve ruined God’s “perfect plan” for you 15 times. Every time God worked with you. Every time you refused to follow or failed to listen or became paralyzed by indecision, God sent grace upon grace and a new path to holiness.
Nothing you’ve done and nothing that’s been done to you makes you irredeemable. PLENTY of Saints were on plan G (or Z) by the time they finally found the Lord:
-St. Matthew Le Van Gam may have been called to enter seminary. He may have been called to leave seminary and get married. He was NOT called to cheat on his wife. But God’s grace is bigger than our sin; they found healing and he found a martyr’s crown.
-Bl. Saturnina was called to religious life but a bad spiritual director told her to get married. So God gave her a vocation to marriage (and 2 wonderful stepchildren). When she was widowed after only 12 years, her call to religious life returned and she founded a new community.
-Bl. Victoire Rasoamanarivo thought she was called to religious life, but when the Sisters convinced her to get married, her lay status made it possible for her to keep the Church running when all priests and religious were expelled from the country.
-Bl. Mary of the Apostles didn’t find her vocation till she was 55. She entered and left 3 communities and founded a 4th that left her before she finally founded the Salvatorian Sisters. Maybe that was all plan A. Maybe not. Either way, it’s what made her a Saint.
-St. Mark Ji TianXiang was an opium addict till the day that he died. That wasn’t God’s desire for him, but he continued to pour out grace that culminated in St. Mark’s martyrdom.
-Sts. Louis and Zelie both wanted to be consecrated. But God wanted the world to have St. Therese (and wanted them to have each other) so they got married and thank the Lord for that!
This is why we don’t have to panic about discernment: God will work with you. If you’re not called to marriage and you get married, he’ll give you a vocation to marriage. If you pick the wrong career, he’ll bless you in that. If you’re wandering and confused and just keep false starting, my friend, you’re in good company. Be at peace.
Love God and then Act
Discernment shouldn’t be terrifying or paralyzing. It isn’t just for enormous decisions and it isn’t waiting for a sign telling you what to wear each morning.
Discernment is falling in love with the God who loved you first and desiring to be in his will.
Discernment is a habit of silent prayer and an attitude of openness to the Spirit.
Discernment is trusting that the God you’ve given your heart to has formed that heart, is speaking in your peace and through your desires, and isn’t going to give up on you even if you get it all wrong.
So what do we need to remember?
-God loves you wildly, recklessly. No matter what.
-It’s more important to seek the Lord than to obsess over his plan. Ultimately his plan is for you to be his.
-God speaks in the silence we carve out for him. Silent prayer is hard but it’s not optional.
-Our God is a God of journeys, not destinations. Just because you don’t know where he’s leading doesn’t mean he’s not leading. Just because you took a detour doesn’t mean he isn’t blessing you in the wandering. Just because you can’t feel him doesn’t mean he’s not there.
-If you find yourself drawn to something you wouldn’t naturally desire, pay attention. If something gives you resounding peace or unnatural anxiety, pay attention.
-Don’t try to discern when hungry, angry, lonely, tired, etc. Deal with your mess (as much as you can) and go from there.
-Just make a decision. God can reroute you far more easily when you’re moving. And he won’t punish you for earnestly trying to follow him but being sort of an idiot.
-Stop rediscerning decisions you can’t alter. It doesn’t matter what you should have done. What matters is what you do now.
-Every call from God is an invitation to love him better, to experience greater joy in him, to be made holy. Even in little things he’s working to make us saints.
Don’t let discernment make you anxious. Just run after Jesus and make the next move. Listen to the longings of your heart, but only after giving him permission to form them through daily silent prayer and regular reception of the Sacraments.
Trust that he loves you, that he’s working, that he won’t abandon you. Then make a decision. That’s discernment.
- (Consecrated life is a different sort of bridal relationship, of course, a realization on earth of what we’re all promised in heaven. And the ministerial priesthood isn’t the same as the priesthood of all believers. But one is not a prize and the other is not a rejection. The goal of every vocation is the same: heaven. [↩]
