There is nothing more sad to see than an aimless life. Such a life does not necessarily mean that the person who lives it never has an aim, but that the aim is constantly being changed. Many a day may be lived very intensely: sometimes an object of interest may fill and absorb every thought for several days. Indeed it is surprising the amount of force and enthusiasm that is expended upon some passing interest altogether out of proportion to its value. Yet a life with all these changing interests and excitements may, after all, be an utterly aimless life; its characteristic is, that it is taken up with passing things, not with anything that is permanent.
The chief bond that binds such a life together is its most marked characteristic - changeableness, instability, uncertainty.
For it is the end - the aim - that interprets the life; we judge people not so much by their attainments as by the tendency, the bent of their life. One may use great and excellent gifts for some unworthy purpose, and even though the purpose may never be attained, we know that it has demoralised the character. We judge one another not so much by what we are as by what we are becoming, trying to be. A person who aims at some noble end in life is noble; the difference between the commonplace life and that which is above the commonplace lies mainly in the region of motive. Before you can understand why one man, with all his failures and blunders, is so different from another, who is in many things more successful, you must understand what it is that inspires his life. The person whose life from first to last is inspired by the noblest aim, however constantly it may fail, however devoid it may be of the brilliancy of natural gifts, lives the most noble of lives.
For all the world's coarse thumb and finger could not plumb,
So passed in making up the main amount;
All instincts insecure, all purposes unsure,
Which count not as the work, but swell the man's account.
Thoughts that could not be packed into a single act,
Fancies that broke through language and escaped.
All that I could not be, all men ignored in me,
This I was worth to God.
What, then, ought to be the aim that inspires the whole character of one who would live the best and noblest life on earth? Many things at once occur to us that would appeal to ambition and call for applause; some necessitating one great gift, some another; but the greatest and most perfect life does not necessarily require great gifts - it lies open to all: it has, not rarely, been lived by those who have been below the average so far as natural endowments are concerned. It is, indeed, a wonderful homage to the power of a great motive to stamp itself upon and develop character, that there are not a few whose names are known in history only on this account, who otherwise would have been lost in the crowd of the commonplace; but they were lifted up and made great by the motive that formed and governed their lives.
And what motive, then, lies open to all, can equally be followed by all, and makes all great who follow it? It seems a very simple one, yet it involves much; it is to fulfill as perfectly as possible the purpose for which one was created by God and placed here upon earth. 'As God hath distributed to every man, as the Lord hath called everyone, so let him walk.' (1 Corinthians 7:17) No one can do better with his life than that, no one can put it to a better use. Any life must be perfect in proportion as it does what it was made to do. There are many lives that are brilliant failures; they strive after many things which they were never intended to do, and fail in that one thing. In proportion as this purpose is considered and aimed after the life is a success. It seems strange that a reasonable being should never ask himself why he was put upon earth, or that it should not occur to him that the reason must be found in the will of his Creator.
I employ a man to do a certain piece of work for me at a certain price. He comes to me at the end of the day and says, 'I have been very busy all day; I have spent all my time in doing some work of my own that I was anxious to finish.' I answer, 'But you have not done the work that I employed you to do; you have been full of your own plans, not mine; therefore, I shall not pay you.' At the end of the day of our earthly life we have to answer to our Maker whether we have been employed about our own work or about His, whether we have even made an effort to find out what He would have us do.
A life which is inspired by such a motive is sure to be a success, for of this we may be absolutely certain, that each of us can fulfil in our life that for which we were created. We cannot be sure that we have the gifts needed for any other purpose; there is at least a risk about it, but in this there is no risk. For God, in creating us, equipped us for the work for which He created us. We have every gift of nature and of grace, of mind and body, which is needed for this work. These gifts can no doubt be used for other ends, and the more brilliant they are the more diverse the uses to which they can be put. Many, not caring to find out what they were given for, may altogether abuse them, or use them for purposes that can never develop them to their full capacity, and consequently the character of the person who possesses them will suffer, and the life will fall short of real success. Often the source of discontent, and restlessness, and lack of peace in a life, which from its power and influence and many gifts is the envy of others, is the half consciousness that the aim is not right, that the powers are not being used for the purpose for which they were given.
It will be an inspiring thought then to keep before us: I have all the powers necessary for a true success in life; no one is so fitted to do the special work I have to do, to fill the special place which I have to fill as I am myself. God wished a certain work to be done; He is almighty and all wise, He saw exactly the person best fitted to do it. He might have created one endowed with every conceivable gift, but He created me; He knew what He was about - it was no accident, I did not come here by chance, but as the result of an intelligent Will. We may try after something that is more to our taste or more showy, or that calls for less exertion and discipline, and so may fail: or we may live in total forgetfulness that we were put here on earth for any purpose at all, or we may waste our life and gifts in fretful discontent with the lot that we are powerless to escape from; but if we take as the key to life the Will of God, and strive to realise His purpose in our creation, and then to fulfill it, we must succeed; and that success will crown the character with a beauty, an attractiveness, a harmony, and an inward peace which will leave the soul without a doubt that the end is right.
Then, too, God has withheld from us what would not be serviceable to this end; it is in His goodness that He has not overweighted the soul with what would be useless, or with what might dissipate its strength or obstruct its path. There are many gifts that we may envy in others, yet if we had them they would only be a hindrance; if they were necessary for us, God would have given them. We do not stud the handle of a hammer with precious stones; if we did, we should be afraid to use it for its ordinary work; and God has not so encrusted out nature with gifts and talents as to blind us to its real purpose. By this means life is made more simple; many doors are closed at the outset: we feel, or we ought to feel, shut out from various positions and spheres of work or influence that pride or ambition might call us into. Indeed, we know well how difficult it is often to accept our limitations; and how many people spend their lives in trying to push their way through doors that are very clearly closed against them, but they will not believe it.
Thus each of us has all that is necessary for fulfilling God's purpose in life, and what we have not we need not regret or envy in others. God did not withhold anything in a grudging spirit, but only because it would be in our way.
And the work of life which God calls us to do has one great end - the development and perfecting of our character. It has, no doubt, its own intrinsic value; it would be a most uninspiring view of the work of life to suppose that in itself it was worthless, like some piece of work given a child, only to teach her how to use her needle. We cannot estimate the value of what is done upon earth, we cannot see its issues; but that it has an intrinsic value we cannot doubt. Yet the great end for which we have been chosen to do it is for our own development and perfection. We may no doubt do the very work God has put us on earth to do in a way that injures ourselves; but if this be so, we may also feel assured that the work of God must suffer also; if the machine gets out of order, it cannot do its work perfectly. It is by the work of life, and in the place chosen by God, that the character is to be formed and perfected, and it is by the character deepening in perfection that the work is to be most perfectly done. There is the work and there is the man - they were made for one another - no one can do the work so well as he, and no other work can do so much for that man. Such a thought will give interest and value to all we have to do, and raise the smallest and most insignificant duties out of the commonplace. Those uninteresting surroundings, and dull people, and that round of duties, they are the tools with which God carves and chisels out of our nature the likeness of Christ; to neglect anything, to do anything in a careless and perfunctory way, will not only spoil the work but will injure the worker.
This, then, must be a fundamental and ruling principle in life, the principle of Vocation - of a purpose which we are called to fulfill; everything will go wrong if the aim is not right. If the aim be true, it will give force and directness to the whole character, and every power of nature and grace will be developed in its perfect proportion.
The idea of Vocation must not be limited to one or two of the more clearly marked calls of God, such as the call to the priesthood or the religious life; we read in the Gospels of one who thought he had a call to such a special following of our Lord as the Apostles had, and our Lord forbade him, and said to him, 'Go home to thy friends, and tell them how great things the Lord hath done for thee.' (Mark 5:19) He would have mistaken his Vocation if he had given up everything to follow Christ; his Vocation, therefore, was as distinctly to the home life as was Saint Peter's to the apostolic life. It is important that we should remember this: Vocation is the call of God to whatever form of life He may please to call one. The realising of one's position in life as a Vocation is like a conversion, it is the opening of the eyes to see the purpose and Will of God behind and through the ordinary events of life. The parable of the labourers in the vineyard shows us the monotonous and commonplace life of a day labourer transformed by the hearing of the call, 'Go, work in my vineyard.' (Matthew 20:4)
In the manifold works and obligations of life, all that keeps the world going, the fundamental difference lies in this, that multitudes who fulfil those duties do so because they are obliged; some few do them in obedience to the Will of God, and this makes all the difference in the character of those who work. Therefore, while some Vocations are no doubt more clearly marked than others, everyone, no matter how humble his position, has his place and work assigned by God, and consequently has in the true sense of the word a Vocation, the realising and fulfilling of which is the condition of perfection.
We must consider further that all God's action towards us will be directed to perfect us through our Vocation, ' This is the Will of God, even your sanctification;' (1 Thessalonians 4:3) it is true, He does care for our happiness and temporal welfare. Everything that affects us is of interest to Him, but all is subservient to our true happiness and the real success of life. If health is necessary that we should reach this end, we may be assured that we shall have health; if health would hinder us, it shall be taken from us; if success is good for us, He will allow us to succeed, but if it would stand in our way, if we would rest in it, or it would elate us and make us worldly, we shall not have success. And so with everything: all is in His hands, and all is ordered with a view to this one end - the fulfillment of the purpose for which He placed us here. And God cannot be won round to forego this. No prayers will move Him. He would be unfaithful to us and to His promises if He failed to fulfil His part. The opportunities, the temptations, the troubles, the blessings will come, the ordering of the outward circumstances of our life; all this we may be sure of, whether we correspond or not. This mighty Will goes on ordering all as it should if we were faithful.
There is something at once alarming and bracing in this thought: it is alarming, indeed, if we do not care to correspond, to think that the strong currents of God's Will, working towards an end from which we have turned away, still keep beating around us, beating upon us, filling the spaces of our life with movements that all tend in the opposite direction to our own, and that must eventually crush us if we do not turn and yield. And yet bracing too: is it not a bracing and inspiring thought to think that there is the Will of Him who orders all things working towards one end - the end towards which we have turned our life - and that it is always on the side of our best selves, always waging unceasing war against any one-sided or partial view of life; that if we get lax or weak He will not be so unkind as to yield to us; that if we swerve for an instant to one side or the other, it, as it were, strikes us and forces us back again. What a strength to think that we have no plan, no purpose in life but His whose Will orders all things.
We have thus but to look out upon the circumstances of our life at any moment to see the operation of this Will on our behalf. 'All things work together for good,' if only our will is directed towards the same end as His. A few suggestions may be helpful with a view to training the will to correspond with God's purpose.
1. Try to see the Will of God in little things. 'The very hairs of your head are all numbered,' (Luke 12:7) 'Not a sparrow shall fall on the ground' (Matthew 10:29) without His will. Nothing happens in our daily life without His permitting it, even what happens through the sin of others. God does not will sin, but He does permit that, sin being committed, we should be tried by it. It needs the constant exercise of faith and watchfulness to see the Will of God constantly operating towards us.
2. Keep the will free when anything naturally pleasing offers itself, some opportunity of enjoyment, some plan that you would naturally like; wait before you decide, and look to God, consult His Will before you choose - that pause and prayer may make all the difference in the result of your choice.
3. So, too, in times of uncertainty, make constant acts of self-oblation, keep your will free till you know the Will of God. Many a time such periods of uncertainty are permitted as times of preparation; during that time of waiting the will learns to accept what it perhaps could not have accepted at once.
4. Do not throw too much intensity into the legitimate choices of the will in ordinary things that give enjoyment. Hold much of the power of the will in reserve; don't spend and exhaust its powers in things which are not worth it. With certain temperaments the tendency is to choose passionately and with all the intensity of one's nature the passing pleasures or superficial things of life as well as the deeper and more important, and consequently there is a lack of proper detachment and readiness to forego what one may have to give up. Keep yourself in hand and reserve the whole power of the will's choice for those things that are worth it.
5. Remember there is a vast difference between willing and wishing; you can't help what you wish at any given moment, but your will is in your own power. Your wishes are the inclinations of your nature, as you find them now, from whatever cause, temperament, taste, or perhaps past sin. It can't be helped now, but often the greatest triumphs of grace consist in the will choosing in direct opposition to what nature wishes. You can't help wishing not to say your prayers, or not to fast, or not to get up in the morning, but you can will and determine to act in opposition to these wishes and so to grow in strength and grace. Therefore don't be anxious because many times you don't wish to do God's Will - will to do it, do it, and the triumph and the reward will be all the greater.
And so, in spite of, and through, all the obstacles both within and without that beset the pathway of the soul, it presses on to fulfill the purpose of God.
- text taken from Some Principles and Practices of the Spiritual Life, by Father Basil William Maturin