The last few years, and especially this year, has been a time of discernment for me. Discernment about my purpose, about what God really wants me to do – in all aspects of my life. Discernment about what exactly is Gods will, versus what is my will. It has at times been exhausting, and yet exciting, and yes excruciating – all at the same time.
And as I’m sure many, if not all of you experience – the single most difficult part is letting my will go, and letting God be God.
I’m sure many of you struggle with this in your daily lives and ask the following questions… How do we follow God’s will when it doesn’t line up with our own? How do we find peace in that? How do we live intensely in the present moment, being obedient and humble and patient when that present moment may not be what we want?
As I reflected on the readings for today, many things went through my mind. I had many different angles from which I wanted to approach this article. But as I thought about the readings, one theme kept popping into my mind over and over.
I continued to reflect on this year, and my life experiences in general. I think about how, what I want, and what I think God wants is often not exactly what God has in mind. It may partially be, but every time God’s way is so much better. Bigger. Beyond my vision.
My field of vision is limited to only what I can see.
God sees it from all angles.
When I look out in front of me, I can only see what I can see – what is directly in my field of vision. I can’t see what is behind me. I can’t see what is above me, what’s out of my peripheral view. I cannot see beyond the horizon.
When we encounter anything in life, we only see our side of the equation. We see it for what it is. This is the same for our spiritual life, and the same for the trials we face.
We can only see what we can see. That doesn’t mean that other things, better things, greater things, are not there. We just cannot see them because they are in a different spot, beyond the horizon, behind the scenes. We cannot see what God is doing in the lives of others, what treasures He is burying, laying out before us that we will eventually unearth. They are simply beyond our field of vision.
And so Jesus speaks today, in another series of parables, about the Kingdom of Heaven. In one of the parables, he says Heaven is like a treasure, buried in a field. We find the treasure, get a taste of it, see the value of it, and bury it again. And then out of joy we sell all we have and buy the entire field so that we can have the treasure. We give everything to God so that we can experience that little slice of Heaven, God’s Love, that we can see and understand in our limited human minds.
But yet all we can see in our minds, in our field of vision, is that treasure that we know. We only bought the field for the treasure that we know is there, that we can comprehend. But we don’t know what else is in that field. We don’t even think about it.
Our field of vision is limited to what we know, to what we can understand.
I think the neat thing about this parable is not so much about the treasure that is buried in the field that we know – but rather what else is in the field, that treasure that we don’t know, that we cannot even begin to understand.
We see what is good, we see what is right. We see where we think God wants us to go, and we go there. We do what we think God wants us to do, and we do it. Sometimes we take a wrong turn and run into a dead end. Sometimes we try to find that treasure again, and we forget where we buried it. As we walk through life, we walk further into that field, and our field of vision expands.
We see things we had no idea were there. We find greater treasures. This is Heaven, of course. We yearn for it. We all want to get there. As much as we can imagine, it does not even come close to a fraction of what Heaven is. We just cannot comprehend it. It’s out of our field of vision.
But yet, this is also God in our earthly life. As we struggle and discern, and seek to know what is good and true, and seek to know God’s will for us, the full picture of His will is always just a little out of our field of vision. We see glimpses and pieces that guide us and allow us to grow and mature. And as the days and weeks and months and years go by, His purpose, His treasure slowly comes more fully into view – if you’re seeking it. As Mary Ortwein so graciously wrote about this past Thursday, life is a constant conversion – a conversion towards becoming more like Christ.
It is simply a constant growth, a constant conversion, a wisdom beyond all understanding.
As we hear in the first reading, Solomon discerned and asked for this wisdom from God in His dream, and God gave him this gift. God gave him this treasure, this pearl of wisdom. But it was only so much.
When I reflect upon what I want to do in my life, the things I love, that I think I am doing for God, for His will – I think about the ways I want to serve Him, and I get saddened when those things don’t work out, or don’t go according to my plan.
The picture in this article, maybe some of you have seen, it’s been shared all over the internet and social media the last couple years by countless people. Our plans in life are so much like this, aren’t they? The little girl, holds onto the teddy bear that she knows and loves – It’s the only thing she can imagine. Anything else is beyond her imagination.
We hold onto the things that we know and love as well, those very things that we think will make us happy, and even those very things that we think will make God happy.
But so often we hold onto our will, and not God’s will.
But then there’s Jesus, with a much bigger bear, hidden for her, behind His back, outside of her field of vision. All He wants her to do is let go of her own will, and simply give her wants and desires to Him. Just desire His love. Give it all to Him.
He wants the same for us.
We hold onto so many things, most of which is due to our pride, our belief that our will is best, that we know best, and we don’t want to let go of that.
We’ve got to be willing to let it go. We’ve got to be willing to put all things aside and simply give our wants and desires, all those things we seek – just give them to God and He will sort it all out. We’ve got to be willing to give God all that we have, and only seek truth and wisdom from Him.
And guess what? Like the little girl, we’ll receive that teddy bear beyond our imagination. And like Solomon, we’ll receive the wisdom, and even riches and rewards we did not even ask for. And perhaps like the person in Jesus’ parable, we’ll unearth more buried treasure in that field that we had no clue was there.
We simply have to give all we have to God, and He will give us more than we can conceive – both in this life and most certainly in the next. We have to let our will go, and let God be God, let Him transform us, knowing that there is so much more that we cannot even see, treasures that are beyond our field of vision in this life and beyond.
1 KGS 3:5, 7-12; PS 119; ROM 8:28-30; MT 13:44-52
