Betty: One of the biggest challenges for most everyone in the spiritual journey is waiting on God’s timing. It is particularly difficult for someone who is intuitive, because they can sense where God is calling them, but they get impatient waiting. It’s very important to be grateful for answered prayers and the ways God is working in our lives. It’s also beneficial to thank Him for any trials we are going through.  

AM: When I had spiritual direction with Fr. Jerry and was struggling, he would say, “Wonderful!  You have to run to Jesus now. It keeps you close to Him.” He even told my close friend that once a difficult trial was over, he actually longed for it in the sense that He was so close to Jesus and was totally dependent on Him.  

Betty: Each trial we get through with Jesus’ grace increases our confidence in Him and brings us to a place of greater peace. We can have high ideals to die to our will, yet the net result of that can be that we feel how willful we really are. We need to continually pray through it. We can hold up the pain of our willfulness to Jesus knowing we can desire to give our will to God, but we can’t do it. He has to do it in us. We have that part that doesn’t want to die. We don’t like when the hidden imperfections in us are exposed.  

There are millions of people not looking at their stuff and playing the shame and blame game. God may be asking us to look within. It can feel like we are in the middle of nowhere when we’re working on our junk. We want to feel like we’ve arrived. But, in the end, learning to live life in truth has a way of paying off. We end up happier.  

There is a part in everyone that thinks the spiritual journey will be easier. We want to get it done faster. If Jesus isn’t in a hurry, then it’s okay. If He’s going to drag it out, then who are we to argue with Him? We are in a mystery of God’s plan. Part of the spiritual life is learning to accept and let go. If God wants to take what seems like forever to bring about a good, then so be it. Ask Him to help you to be the person He wants you to be. 

We can pray, “God if you’re not in a hurry, help me not be in a hurry.” Teresa of Avila said we should be at peace with whatever God permits to happen. Our Perfectionist will not like this, but the spiritual writers developed that attitude. “Lord, I’m sorry I haven’t loved and given you more.  But the fact is that you still love me, and I give you what I can this day.” Then get up and go on. Satan is the one that wants us to beat ourselves up, not the Lord. The Lord wants us to ask forgiveness for our faults. We are the ones having difficulty loving ourselves where we are, not the Lord. 

This is part how we will develop an ability to be at peace even though things aren’t always to our liking. It’s by learning to find God in it anyhow. There’s an arrogant part in a lot of us saying, “God, if you’d only listen to me, I could help you get this done faster.” Face reality. There’s a mystery here.  But growth and wisdom is to do what we are doing with it—- to put it back in the Lord’s hands. “Lord, teach me. Help me find the good that Your wisdom wants to bring out of all of this. Not my will, but Thine be done.” (Luke 22:42)