A few days ago, I was reflecting on how, if I hadn't left the job that I left just before joining the Peace Corps, it would have been my ten-year anniversary at that job earlier this month. I sometimes get quizzical and puzzled looks when I tell people that I left my comfortable, unstressful, secure job to enter the Peace Corps. Similarly, people, including at least one other PCV, have asked me if I miss what I had before I left the U.S.
I was aided in my decision to leave that job, and, as far as I can see at this point, to stop working in that field, insofar as I had concluded that that particular job wasn't a good fit for me. I'd concluded that, given what my skills are, there were other jobs where I could perform better, and be happier.
But I also have long tried to maintain an approach to my life in which I evaluate the life that I'm living. I try to ask myself if I should make changes in my life, so that I can live a better life. Throughout my life, more and more I've tried to do what God wants me to do. I've tried to open the door so God could enter my life more easily as Revelation 3:20 suggests:
Here I am!
I stand at the door and knock.
If anyone hears my voice and opens the door,
I will come in and eat with that person, and they with me.
Indeed, after composing parts of this blog entry in my head over the last couple of days, I found it very appropriate when, this morning, I read the following passage from the book of Tobit. I felt that Tobit was expressing what I have experienced in my life:
Turn to Him with all your heart and soul,
live in loyal obedience to Him.
Then He will turn to you to help you
and will no longer hide Himself.
Remember what God has done for you,
and give thanks with all your heart.
- Tobit 13: 6
Over the years, as I've tried to listen to the Holy Spirit, and thus as I've sought to follow God's Word, I've found it easier to hear the Holy Spirit. Consequently--at least for me--I have also increasingly found it much harder to evade what it is telling me. After a period of some years, I found that I prefer to submit. I prefer to try to enter by the narrow gate, as Matthew 7:13 advises. Though the path is narrow, and thus has its own trials and tribulations, I find those challenges much easier to brave than the challenges on the wide path, the difficulties which have arisen when I have chosen not to follow what the Holy Spirit has tried to tell me, when I have tried to follow a more selfish path. At least amidst the difficulties of trying to follow what the Holy Spirit is telling me, I gain the satisfaction and warmth and community and mutual support that arises out of helping others.
Otherwise I would be facing the difficulties arising from not following the Holy Spirit's guidance--and at the same time not reaping the benefits arising out of trying to follow God's will. In that case, I would be deprived of the fulfillment, interconnection, and strength through interdependence on others that I gain by trying to follow God's will.
Faced with these two paths as alternatives to each other, I am reminded of a film I recently watched, "St. Giuseppe Moscati, Doctor to the Poor." In the film, St. Giuseppe Moscati ponders, "Life isn't that unfair, really. In every test it sends us there is an opportunity." So I have tended to view choices in my life, especially ones posing more formidable challenges, more and more as choices between trying to follow God's will or trying to follow some other path where I am helping others less.
In trying to follow God's Word, long ago I also saw that it is important to help poor persons, given how many times Scripture passages advise to help impoverished people. In the last few days, I was yet again reminded that it is important to help those who are impoverished, again while reading the book of Tobit. Tobit advised:
If you are stingy in giving to the poor, God will be stingy in giving to you.
Give according to what you have.
The more you have, the more you should give.
Even if you have only a little, be sure to give something.
This is as good as money saved.
You will have your reward in a time of trouble.
Taking care of the poor is the kind of offering that pleases God in heaven.
Do this, and you will be kept safe from the dark world of the dead.
- Tobit 4:7-11
And I feel that I am aided on this path, of trying to help impoverished people, and of otherwise trying to follow God's Word, by having chosen a life here in the Peace Corps, since my current life affords me the time to do such work and to reflect on these matters. In addition to instances evident in some of my previous blog entries, here in this blog entry, I've presented one example of how I've found such contemplative use of my time here helpful. This morning I gained insight when I read that particular passage from the book of Tobit: it clarified for me how I got to be here, and why I am here, in the Peace Corps in Morocco.
And you know what else? As a result of having made these changes in my life, which are allowing me to spend more time helping impoverished people and which are also allowing me to devote more time to my spiritual well-being, I like myself better. I am glad that I am investing the time to try to foster my own spiritual development. And I am glad to be here helping others. Again I am reminded of the film, "St. Giuseppe Moscati, Doctor to the Poor," and how, in that film, one of his contemporaries explained, "This is the love that makes you happy, the love you give to others, expecting nothing in return."
I was aided in my decision to leave that job, and, as far as I can see at this point, to stop working in that field, insofar as I had concluded that that particular job wasn't a good fit for me. I'd concluded that, given what my skills are, there were other jobs where I could perform better, and be happier.
But I also have long tried to maintain an approach to my life in which I evaluate the life that I'm living. I try to ask myself if I should make changes in my life, so that I can live a better life. Throughout my life, more and more I've tried to do what God wants me to do. I've tried to open the door so God could enter my life more easily as Revelation 3:20 suggests:
Here I am!
I stand at the door and knock.
If anyone hears my voice and opens the door,
I will come in and eat with that person, and they with me.
Indeed, after composing parts of this blog entry in my head over the last couple of days, I found it very appropriate when, this morning, I read the following passage from the book of Tobit. I felt that Tobit was expressing what I have experienced in my life:
Turn to Him with all your heart and soul,
live in loyal obedience to Him.
Then He will turn to you to help you
and will no longer hide Himself.
Remember what God has done for you,
and give thanks with all your heart.
- Tobit 13: 6
Over the years, as I've tried to listen to the Holy Spirit, and thus as I've sought to follow God's Word, I've found it easier to hear the Holy Spirit. Consequently--at least for me--I have also increasingly found it much harder to evade what it is telling me. After a period of some years, I found that I prefer to submit. I prefer to try to enter by the narrow gate, as Matthew 7:13 advises. Though the path is narrow, and thus has its own trials and tribulations, I find those challenges much easier to brave than the challenges on the wide path, the difficulties which have arisen when I have chosen not to follow what the Holy Spirit has tried to tell me, when I have tried to follow a more selfish path. At least amidst the difficulties of trying to follow what the Holy Spirit is telling me, I gain the satisfaction and warmth and community and mutual support that arises out of helping others.
Otherwise I would be facing the difficulties arising from not following the Holy Spirit's guidance--and at the same time not reaping the benefits arising out of trying to follow God's will. In that case, I would be deprived of the fulfillment, interconnection, and strength through interdependence on others that I gain by trying to follow God's will.
Faced with these two paths as alternatives to each other, I am reminded of a film I recently watched, "St. Giuseppe Moscati, Doctor to the Poor." In the film, St. Giuseppe Moscati ponders, "Life isn't that unfair, really. In every test it sends us there is an opportunity." So I have tended to view choices in my life, especially ones posing more formidable challenges, more and more as choices between trying to follow God's will or trying to follow some other path where I am helping others less.
In trying to follow God's Word, long ago I also saw that it is important to help poor persons, given how many times Scripture passages advise to help impoverished people. In the last few days, I was yet again reminded that it is important to help those who are impoverished, again while reading the book of Tobit. Tobit advised:
If you are stingy in giving to the poor, God will be stingy in giving to you.
Give according to what you have.
The more you have, the more you should give.
Even if you have only a little, be sure to give something.
This is as good as money saved.
You will have your reward in a time of trouble.
Taking care of the poor is the kind of offering that pleases God in heaven.
Do this, and you will be kept safe from the dark world of the dead.
- Tobit 4:7-11
And I feel that I am aided on this path, of trying to help impoverished people, and of otherwise trying to follow God's Word, by having chosen a life here in the Peace Corps, since my current life affords me the time to do such work and to reflect on these matters. In addition to instances evident in some of my previous blog entries, here in this blog entry, I've presented one example of how I've found such contemplative use of my time here helpful. This morning I gained insight when I read that particular passage from the book of Tobit: it clarified for me how I got to be here, and why I am here, in the Peace Corps in Morocco.
And you know what else? As a result of having made these changes in my life, which are allowing me to spend more time helping impoverished people and which are also allowing me to devote more time to my spiritual well-being, I like myself better. I am glad that I am investing the time to try to foster my own spiritual development. And I am glad to be here helping others. Again I am reminded of the film, "St. Giuseppe Moscati, Doctor to the Poor," and how, in that film, one of his contemporaries explained, "This is the love that makes you happy, the love you give to others, expecting nothing in return."
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