When Your Desires and God’s Plans Are Different
The Fr. Mike Schmitz Catholic Podcast
Ascension
4.9 • 7.1K Ratings
🗓️ 13 February 2020
⏱️ 8 minutes
🧾️ Download transcript
Summary
Just because you desire something deeply doesn’t mean it’s God’s plans for you. Sometimes our desires and God’s will are different. Our desires are not predictors of the future and they’re not the voice of God. We are supposed to tend to our desires and discern what is being revealed through them, but letting them dictate your path in life is not wise.
Especially when it comes to romantic relationships, we tend to favor the decisions that would give us our desire. If the person you desire keeps coming up in prayer, it’s because you keep bringing him or her up. Don’t fool yourself. At the heart of this desire is probably a good longing for marriage and a family. Acknowledging the desire for what it is will help you make a more clear-headed decision regarding it.
You may also have a desire to pursue a certain career path. If you want to sing, for example, do you want to spend every day singing and live the life of a singer? When you acknowledge the realistic lifestyle your dream job would entail, it often brings sobriety to your desire. If the desire still does not subside, don’t automatically assume it’s because it must be your destiny. Examine your past, your conscience, and the things that have influenced you. Examine the things that may have brought about this desire. This examination will teach you valuable things about yourself.
Our desire for goodness and holiness is a good thing. We have these desires so we can learn more about what’s deepest in our hearts. So next time one of your recurring desires come back, go deeper and ask yourself, “What does this desire really reveal about me? What do I really want at the very core of it?” Bring it to prayer and God will reveal something very profound, as he has often been known to do.
Transcript
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| 0:00.0 | Here's the deal. Desires, they might be good, they might be bad, but even good desires are |
| 0:06.2 | not a prediction of the future, and they're not necessarily the voice of God. |
| 0:10.0 | Hi, I'm Ernest Walthamak-Schmitz. This is The Sension Presents. So I recently was in |
| 0:22.6 | a conversation with a young woman who was talking about the fact that she had this great |
| 0:26.7 | relationship with this great guy, good and holy man. She was driving after the Lord, he was |
| 0:30.7 | driving after the Lord, going along great, and then the relationship ended. But she's |
| 0:36.4 | still had this really powerful desire for the relationship, and this really powerful, |
| 0:41.3 | I guess, I might turn, maybe she's used the word conviction that this is what God wanted, |
| 0:45.9 | because she had this deep, like the desire was there. The desire of, like, wait a second, |
| 0:50.0 | this is good. This is a good desire to a long for marriage with this holy man. It's really, |
| 0:55.9 | really great. In addition, let's talk about this in a second. In addition, there are many people |
| 1:00.2 | who came up to her during retreats or during other kind of things in prayer, and these would be |
| 1:04.2 | semi-reliable people in other contexts who would say, you know what, I think you're really |
| 1:08.5 | called a marriage. You know what, I think you're really not called a religious life. Here's |
| 1:11.5 | what I really think. And no, keep in mind, this is an after, like, living in a convent for a month, |
| 1:18.2 | this is after, kind of, like, here's a weak and retreat. So it's the amount of information they |
| 1:23.4 | had was very minimal, and also their role in, like, discernment for people's vocations in their |
| 1:30.6 | religious community was really minimal as well. Note on this, I find this happens quite a bit when |
| 1:38.4 | someone, we, we can't have a tendency to place a lot of weight on someone who tells us, tells us |
| 1:45.6 | our vocation or tells us, here's what I think your vocation is, maybe especially if what they're |
| 1:52.0 | telling us is the one thing we want, right? So in this context, this young woman, she wanted to |
| 1:56.1 | be married. And she's like, she's open to both, or to all vocations, right? She's open to being a |
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