One of the saddest moments in the Bible comes from Psalm 81 where God is speaking about His people. 

 

In the New American Bible it reads: “But my people did not listen to my words; Israel did not obey me. So I gave them over to hardness of heart; they followed their own designs.”

 

That divisive situation created by the Israelites of that time was not unique. We can all point to people we know personally and people in the news who stubbornly want their way — eventually suffering the consequences of pushing God and His instructions aside. We can recognize their precarious situations and pray they will learn to welcome God into their lives.

 

But do we notice those same tendencies in our own hearts? We are all human, and wrestling with God and His will seems a universal exercise for most everyone.

 

If we have any shred of wisdom, we realize that being isolated from God is only going to hurt us. Indulging any hardness of heart will lead us further and further away from God, who is the source of all good.

 

Even knowing and believing that, we still tend to want what we want. Most of the time our desires seem so important, and we think they are necessary for our wellbeing. To us, they are “needs” not “wants.”

 

Turning such desirables over to God for His direction and giving Him permission to interfere in our lives ... well, that does not come easily or automatically. Most of the time what we wish for appears to be good and logical and wise. From our perspective, it’s a no-brainer and obviously good for us to receive that item, or that promotion, or that award, or that new relationship.

 

But we don’t know ourselves as well as we think we do, and our view of life is limited by our experiences and situations. You might say we are too close to ourselves to see accurately. And guess what! We can’t see into the future!

 

Hopefully the progress of our life’s spiritual journey has brought us to where we have begun to lasso our wills and work on taming them. Even when we remember that God wants what is truly best for us and actually knows what that ‘best’ is — our hearts still want to stiffen up and vote for “my way!”

 

When we begin to challenge our hearts to soften under God’s touch and our minds to open up to His instruction, God will be happy to send His graces to help us in that quest. Additionally, He will begin to provide us with insights about our true needs and what and why we often desire something else.

 

Our prayer life should evolve and expand as we go along. As we grow, we’ll be more attracted to the sacraments. We’ll become more interested in expanding our prayer intentions beyond an almost-exclusive focus on ourselves and our loved ones. We’ll better appreciate the saints and be inspired by them.

 

In our prayers, particularly when we realize that we are sounding self-centered or have started telling God what to do for us, we may find ourselves adding something like, “But don’t listen to my yammering on. Please, God, you know best. Help me to avoid my usual narrow focus.”

 

But evidence of our spiritual growth may not be recognizable.

 

We may or may not notice that we are growing in love, for example. In fact at times we might wonder if we are regressing because we’ll start to see how much selfishness is behind a lot of what we do. We’ll begin to wonder why God puts up with us, and we’ll realize we need to imitate the patience of Jesus — and His forgiveness of others.

 

As God gives us insights into our own faults and personalities, we’ll grow in self-knowledge and be better at tolerating others’ less-desirable personalities. And we’ll learn to go on even as we realize how limited we are.

 

Aligning our wills to God’s is a long, difficult trek.

 

But following the path of our own designs deprives us of such an almighty helper who loves us and wants to lead us to eternal joy. His road is the much better way.