Total Dependence on God

One might think that after having to end a relationship, give up dreams of marriage, and spend 8 long years in the seminary to answer God’s call to be a priest, one would have already given up his entire life to Jesus. At least that’s what I thought of myself. But I was wrong.

In the last two weeks of School of Mission, I’ve come to realize that I haven’t indeed fully given up everything to Him as yet. While I might have given up my life to be a priest back in the seminary, I was still forming my own plans and pursuing my own desires as to how I would like to serve God, or even how the Church should change, and how I could be a part of that process. On a smaller scale, I was still withholding some aspects of my life to myself, like what I do with my free time, what I watch onscreen, and seeking pleasure based on my own terms.

In CCC 397, we are told that man’s first sin is to lost his trust in and dependence on God, just as how Adam and Eve failed to trust in God’s providence and took things into their own hands. It was from this first sin that they fell into the sin of disobedience by eating the forbidden fruit. In the same way, over and above my habitual sins of disobedience, the far deadlier sin is NOT to trust in God’s providence and NOT to depend on Him for every single aspect of my life.

This means that it’s not enough that I become a priest for God; not enough that I serve in Church or have great and wonderful plans for God. All this comes to nothing if I don’t first depend on God and trust that His plan is better than mine, and entrust every single aspect of my life to His plan and will.

This was a sobering lesson for me, but it also affirms why God gave me this sabbatical year to further strip myself of all my plans and desires. Therefore, I am now giving back to God all my plans, gifts, dreams, passions, vocation, and even my free time. In this School, I am learning to depend completely on Him alone for everything I need, and continue seeking His true will for me, not just in my vocation and how I am to serve Him, but even in the small daily ordinary tasks. For apart from Him I can do NOTHING. (Jn 15:5)

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Originally posted on Instagram.
Image: Julius Sergius von Klever, Christ Walking on the Water (1880)

Nicholas Lye

Nicholas Lye

Nicholas Lye is a Singaporean currently on a year's sabbatical from the seminary, discerning his path in life and striving to facilitate encounters with God in the workplace and ordinary life.

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