Aligning Our Desires With God’s Will: A Lifelong Process of Learning, Submission, and Trust
“Carry the cross patiently, and with perfect submission; and in the end it shall carry you” (Thomas à Kempis).
Editor’s note: This Advent, the Catholic Women in Business team is exploring the many ways God calls us to cooperate with his will and how we can proclaim our own “fiat.” Join our writers as they share their personal and professional experiences, lessons learned, and reflections from Scripture and the saints on discernment, trust, and surrender. Read more here.
When it comes to setting goals in my personal or professional life, I’m often guilty of taking a top-down approach: I decide what I want to achieve, and then I (sometimes) invite God into my agenda and ask him to bless it forward.
But, as I round the corner toward my mid-30s, this approach has left me depleted and burned out. Frankly, this approach makes me feel a lot of pressure. When I set my own agenda, I feel there’s much more on the line, and when I fall short of the benchmarks I so often arbitrarily set, it feels like a personal failure.
I deeply want to nurture desires that align with God’s will, so that my efforts beautifully blend with his grace and the gifts of the Holy Spirit. But, after more than three decades of white-knuckling, I’m left wondering: How do I even begin to make that paradigm shift?
I turned to the Catholic Women in Business community for their advice, and I’ve boiled down their wisdom into five pillars: turning to Our Lady, adopting a posture of trust, cultivating deep and abiding silence, weaving prayer into the workday, and cultivating a habit of spiritual reading. Here, I will walk through each of them.
1. Start With the Rosary
One woman recommends praying the Rosary daily—or even more during times of intense discernment. She says the peace and clarity it provides have had a direct impact on every corner of her life.
Indeed, Our Lady is a wonderful guide. I notice that when I turn to the Rosary instead of self-help gurus and blogs, I feel flooded with peace, even if I don’t gain immediate answers. Sometimes, that peace is better than answers, because it grounds me, takes my mind away from comparison or fear, and reminds me that I (and my business) am just a small part of a much greater context.
As Pope St. Paul VI wrote in “Marialis Cultus,” a 1974 encyclical on Marian devotion: “By its nature the recitation of the Rosary calls for a quiet rhythm and a lingering pace, helping the individual to meditate on the mysteries of the Lord’s life as seen through the eyes of her who was closest to the Lord.”
One of my childhood friends who has entered a religious order describes prayers to Mary as akin to presenting your petitions as a giant mess—and trusting her to rearrange the mess into something beautiful, like curating a bouquet of flowers. Indeed, we are always welcome and encouraged to head straight to Jesus with our messy petitions, but when we take advantage of the advocate we have in his mother, we allow our raw and visceral prayers to be made more beautiful and pure.
2. Pray the Litany of Trust
St. Faustina is credited with the popularity of the Divine Mercy image of Jesus, pictured with a hand extended and beams of light bursting from his chest. As I once heard a priest point out in a homily, this image of Christ is also pictured as though he is walking toward us, ready to pour out his mercies upon us. Frequently, this image is paired with the written words, “Jesus, I trust in you.”
One Catholic businesswoman urges us to pray the Litany of Trust to shift our posture from one of pride to one of submission. Even if we don’t feel as though we fully trust Jesus, declaring our trust out loud makes it feel more real. The Divine Mercy Chaplet is also a powerful tool for cultivating a trusting and submissive heart.
3. Befriend Silence
As one Catholic woman in business points out, breaking away from external influences is crucial. It can look like taking intentional time away from social media or constant content consumption, seeking wise counsel through spiritual direction, or dedicating one day a week to Sabbath rest.
Something that has helped me recently is popping into an adoration chapel once or twice a week. There is a chapel at my son’s preschool, so I have developed the habit of stepping inside for a few moments before picking him up. On busier weeks, there is also a livestream that you can pull up on your device while you are working or getting ready for the day. In-person sacraments are, obviously, ideal. But, if you cannot make it to your parish due to illness or other challenges, a virtual replacement can help you cultivate the silence needed to run your challenges and questions through Jesus in his all-consuming, loving presence.
4. Start the Work Day With Prayer
The woman who recommends this practice suggests shifting the cadence of prayer from asking God favors and, instead, becoming aware of the needs of others. She has two patron saints for her business, and she invokes their intercession at the start of each day in order to keep her mind others-focused instead of self-involved.
When I shift my focus away from myself and my own pursuit of success, financial gain, or other assurances that I’m doing well and instead think of how my business can serve the kingdom, it’s like someone opened a pressure valve. I feel less stressed, strained, and as though every little thing I do bears eternal significance. It reminds me that my small acts are but an infinitesimal part of a much more expansive process of learning and growing in virtue. Not to mention, it reminds me that in the end, my work is not life or death and, though it bears inherent dignity, it’s not nearly as important as I think it is!
Consistently asking God to use me, and my talents, to show others his light and love has helped me shift my mindset. Two prayers that have helped me are the Surrender Novena and the intense but invaluable Litany of Humility.
5. Immerse Yourself in Spiritual Texts
Reading widely can sharpen us in many ways, and spiritual reading can prime us to be attentive to the Spirit’s movements in our lives and businesses. One Catholic businesswoman recommends “Into Your Hands, Father,” by Wilfred Stinissen. An older but still widely-praised text is “Abandonment to Divine Providence,” by Jean-Pierre de Caussade.
Spiritual reading feels like an exercise in training my mind to focus on higher truths. While I often turn to books that feel a lot like eating candy, committing to a regular practice of spiritual reading is, instead, like fueling my body with nourishing foods. While a bit of chocolate adds some flavor to life, we cannot run solely on sugar and empty calories.
Jesus, I Surrender Myself to You
One of the key lines in the Surrender Novena is, “Jesus, I surrender myself to you. Take care of everything.” Repeating this line has an almost medicinal effect: As we submit ourselves to Jesus, we recognize that we really never had control, anyway. It was just an illusion. Submission is the better path. To walk that path well, we need to immerse ourselves in prayer, relish the intellectual life, and seek support and encouragement from our sisters in Christ.
Alexandra Macey Davis is a wife, mother, and writer who shares her take on issues at the intersection of faith, culture, and family life. Her work has been published in Verily Magazine, Coffee + Crumbs, Public Discourse, FemCatholic, Everyday Mamas, She is Kindred, and many more. By day, she runs Davis Legal Media - a ghostwriting service for lawyers - and in the margins, you can find her wheeling her double stroller through vintage furniture stores, hoarding her favorite recipes, or writing at coffee shops. You can connect with Alex on her website, on Instagram, or by joining her monthly newsletter, where she encourages working moms to pursue goodness, truth, and beauty in their vocations.