Perhaps I am not alone in feeling this way, but I desire a great mission for my life. I want to do big things and transform society. When I look at the different passions in my life, I wonder how I will ever be able to use them all, how will God be the fulfillment of all of my desires. Taking a look at where I am at the present moment can cause me to feel impatient and claustrophobic. I want to travel, to live life, to have adventures, to be incandescently happy. There are moments, like on Thursday, when I look at my life as a teacher and I wonder what in the world I am doing. Some people are able to say that every day they go to work they are filled with a desire to go to work and that because of that, they never feel like it is work. Unfortunately, I cannot say that the same is always true with me. There have been several times over the past few months that I didn't want to go to work, that the thing I wanted most was to extend the weekend. My heart desires something grand and beautiful. Yet when I look at where I am in my life, I begin to wonder if it is ever possible to attain that. Am I simply missing God's will in my life? Will I be my own worst enemy? Everyone desires a great love and a great adventure and too quickly I begin to wonder where mine is. I've spent half of the past semester longing to live life fully and the other half praying to enter into eternal life. At times I am filled with a passion for teaching and with gratitude that I am able to do what I wanted to do right out of college. Nevertheless, I wonder what else there is for me and how the plan will unfold.
Maybe much of this is natural--the transition years after college, the quest to find stable footing, the desire to be a saint, the longings to be fulfilled. Yet some of this is perhaps the temptation of the evil one. If he can make God's will for me now seem to be unimportant or too little, then he is winning in a sense. God could have a grand mission for me next year but His will for me is to be a teacher now. If I focus on the future grandeur and fail to do my duty in the present moment, then I am effectively not doing God's will out of a misappropriated desire to do His will in the future. I need to learn patience without succumbing to passivity. How will I know if God is asking me to step out in faith or if it is my own desire for the grand that will cause me to run contrary to the will of God. I have this desire to be a saint and although I know there are many saints of the ordinary, I don't want to be ordinary. While I don't want to stand out especially, I long for a great mission, something where all of my desires are fulfilled. Maybe this is just my melancholic nature coming out and longing for the ideals that can only truly be found in Heaven. All I know is that I long for a beautiful adventure that will be personally transforming and will transform others. A little daisy wants to be a bouquet of roses.
What a different view of me my students would have if they read this blog. I know they don't think I'm perfect but I like to think I look generally put together and collected. At times I wish I could tell them how ridiculous and confused I truly am. The facade would be destroyed. What does God want me to do now? He has placed me here for a reason. I forget that reason, though, in moments of frantic worry and a desire for my will to be done. So, Lord, if Your desire is for me to be here now, please teach me how to do Your will in the present moment--and to love doing it.
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