Merry Christmas

Hi friends, I’m back, it’s December and Christmas is around the corner. This month, I’m going to share with you my all time favourite Matthew Kelly talk about “Finding Your Mission”. I’m warning you now, it’s a little lengthy, I apologize for this but I urge you to stick with this and follow it to the end. Some of you have already heard this talk in class #8. Remember, step out of your current beliefs and opinions for a moment and think of this as just more “Food For Thought”. Here goes ! Matthew says, “Have you ever been told, you can do anything you want if you set your mind to it”? Lies, not true. It wouldn’t matter how hard Mother Theresa worked at it, she would never play in the NHL. She lacked a number of natural abilities to make that happen. What a waste it would have been if instead of pursuing her God given mission, Mother Theresa would have become a hockey player. Notice the gap between the ways of the world and the vision God has for your life. The world says, life is about doing what you want and doing what you want will make you happy. God says, He has a plan for our lives and following that plan will lead us the the utmost happiness. We know that God knows us better than anyone else, He created us, He knows us better than we know ourselves. He designed us for a specific mission in mind. We were designed on purpose and for a purpose. Albert Einstein says ” Everybody is a genius, but if you judge a fish by its ability to climb a tree, it will spend it’s whole life believing it is stupid”. If we’re going to discover our mission, we need to discover our genius. What are each of us uniquely designed to contribute? To discover our genius, we need to talk to the person who designed us – God ! Matthew goes on to say, that God speaks to us in 3 ordinary voices. The first ordinary voice of God is 1) Legitimate Needs. We have legitimate needs in the 4 areas of the human person: a) Physical: for food, sleep and exercise. b) Emotional: we have the need to love and be loved. c) Intellectual: we need opportunities to learn new things, expand our minds. d) Spiritual: we have legitimate needs for silence, solitude, scripture, sacraments. We will meet 100’s of people in the world who are obsessed with getting what they want. But, getting what they want will not make them happy. The reason is simple. “You never can get enough of what you don’t really need”. God has given us Legitimate Needs as clues on how to live life to the fullest. The second ordinary voice of God is 2) Talents and Abilities. We each have a unique blend of talents and abilities. They are perfectly suited to carry out whatever mission God has assigned to just you. There are 2 types. a) Universal Talents. We all have these. These are the ability to make a difference in people’s lives. The second is b) Unique Talents. These are the talents that are specific to you, not everyone has them. ie) the talent to sing, or create a work of art, or be the best hockey player in the world. The world is obsessed with unique talents. But when you consider the ability to make a difference in people’s lives and the ability to shoot a hockey puck, the hockey thing becomes trivial. Why? Because it is. The world often takes the trivial and makes it important and takes the important and makes it trivial. God has given us a unique blend of talents and abilities that are vocational. What does that mean? They hold clues about our mission in life, our genius, our vocation and the best way for us to live. The third ordinary voice of God is 3) Our Deepest Desires. Deep in our heart we have the desire for good things and God has placed those desires in our hearts to guide us towards the life that he’s imagined for us. When we embrace God and His way of life, God will reveal many dimensions of everyday life that you never saw before or thought about before. God is speaking to us through our deepest desires. As you head into 2018, seek out your deepest desires for good things, and have the courage to pursue them. In the bible the most common preface to any sentence is: “God said”. God said to Adam, Noah, Abraham, Mose. God spoke to everyone. It isn’t that God has stopped speaking, but humanity has stopped listening. God speaks to us through prayer, scriptures, sacraments, life, the history and teachings of the church. He speaks to us through other people, events, circumstances, our relationships. God is taking to everyone. John Henry Newman wrote, ” God created me to do Him some definite service. He has committed some work to me which He hasn’t committed to another. I have my mission”. If we don’t fulfill our mission, it will go undone. Matthew Kelly says, “The world is a mess. Why? Because too many people have abandoned their God given mission”. Find your mission. Ask the Lord in prayer to reveal His mission for you, to you. It will change your life in the most wonderful ways, and lead you to your ultimate happiness, fulfillment and peace in life. So that’s it folks. A little more food for thought over the holidays. And for some of you, perhaps a new perspective to chew on a bit. This piece was taken from Matthew Kelly’s Decision Point Confirmation Program. Have a wonderful, safe and blessed Christmas and all the best over the New Year. Love MJ. xo