To do, the next right thing -
I think sometimes when you feel lost it’s really easy to get caught up in angst and frustration of not knowing the bigger picture. It’s hard to be motivated when you can’t quite tell where you’re going or how you’re moving forward. A long time ago I decided to try and make my life subject to what God’s will for my life may be. There has been some hesitation in totally giving myself up to that because forfeiting control and living in faith in very real ways is scary and can be quite humbling.
If you look at the world around you and see how unpredictable life can be it becomes easier to relinquish control, because so little in our lives are actually controllable. This became true for me when I started having unpredictable and devastating anaphylactic reactions at the age of 18. But still, in a society where there is relative peace, grasping at what control I do have is very tempting. And holding tightly, white knuckled to whatever of it I have is a weakness of mine. It’s a weakness and also a trap, a trap to being totally free. But I desire freedom, and I want to be holy so that I can love God and love others in the best way, I want to be able to say at the end of my life that it was all so full and so beautiful. Up to this point I can say that confidently.
There have been a few instances over the last few years where the answer to several questions has been unclear to me. And certainly where I have been unable to see the bigger picture, there’s a particular area of my life that I feel like has been confused and where I feel like I have been working toward a fruitless end. While I want to keep the specifics private, I think that feeling of working towards a fruitless end is something most of us experience at some point. But I still feel called to give it time and energy, at least as of today, I still feel like I’m meant to put effort - time and energy to this area of my life. But it’s very hard for me to be motivated to do so and this is where the philosophy of the ‘next right thing’ has been instrumental and very helpful.
Doing the ‘next right thing’, even when you can’t see the bigger picture results in small acts of faith, small acts of trust that the efforts put there will not be wasted. And even if there’s no peace in the general direction there are small amounts of peace and clarity in the ‘next right thing’. Years ago I read a book called Poustinia, and the author of the book, Catherine Doherty has a philosophy that really resonated with me and continues to help me in this way of the ‘next right thing’, so finally I’ll leave you with one of her quotes. I hope it helps you get through your day, even if your day consists of seemingly mindless tasks and even when you can’t quite see the other end of what you’re struggling with.
“The duty of the moment is what you should be doing at any given time, in whatever place God has put you. You may not have Christ in a homeless person at your door, but you may have a little child. If you have a child, your duty of the moment may be to change a dirty diaper. So you do it. But you don’t just change that diaper, you change it to the best of your ability, with such great love for both God and that child… There are all kinds of good Catholic things you can do, but whatever they are, you have to realize that there is always the duty of the moment to be done. And it must be done, because the duty of the moment is the duty of God.” - Catherine Doherty
