God has it figured out--not me!

Yesterday I wrote about the importance of including both the devotional and the active as part of our faith. I must pray, study and reflect, but then I must put my faith into action in the world. Of course, writing that piece was a form of reflection and I began to wonder if I could be doing more of the action thing. I am a reader and a writer so it seems very natural to study and reflect. Prayer gets worked in there too. But I am not so sure I get my hands dirty enough in the action part. It is very easy to write a check and I know it is appreciated. Yet I find it much easier to sacrifice money than to sacrifice time. So I did some praying yesterday in Mass for some guidance.

I was thinking I probably could take some time to do some really deep digging in our closets and get some clothes and coats to our local homeless shelter. Maybe I could figure out one morning a week to volunteer at a food pantry. Of course after Mass I was immediately sucked into the daily grind of managing the household and I took no initiative to look into the “feed the hungry” or “clothe the naked” opportunities. Then last night as we are finishing up the dinner dishes I got a phone call. Our DRE was on the line. It seems that a high school student has just entered the RCIA program and would like to enter the Church at Easter. He has been raised as a fairly nominal Christian. She was wondering if I would be willing to give him some one-on-one teaching to help catch him up with the rest of the RCIA class? I think our DRE has figured out that I don’t know how to say, ”No” to her. Well, I did pray for something else to do. I guess this is an answer to that prayer. To instruct the ignorant is one of the spiritual works of mercy.

Once again I am reminded it is His will not my will that I need to be heeding. I thought I had it all figured out. Then God said, “Go ahead and clean out your closets, but what I really need is for you to teach.” Pray for this young man as he begins this conversion process. And pray that the Holy Spirit will guide me through his instruction.