Today's meditation is you did not chose me, I chose you.
As a western Christian, I am of the practical way. I figure God wants us to do stuff, so we find what we want to do and assume (or if we are pious, ask) God to bless us.
The alternative to "ask" God what to so seems a bit overboard: like groveling before an eatern potantate.
But, of course, God give us talents to be used. If we are called to be artists, then when we produce art, we are obeying the call of the great Artist to produce beauty. If we are musicians, even the most secular music will mirror that joy and praise or that longing or lament inside us that echoes the way of the heart that seeks the Good, that marvels at the beautiful, that longs for the glorious, or laments at the burdens of earth that can only be solaced by the mercy of the great comforter.
I "chose" to follow God, partly because I was a goody goody, but partly because I had the talents for science and the ability to tolorate the sick. And I loved new things and travel and was fascinated how different people thought and acted differently, not only as individuals but in different cultures. So being a missionary was a big adventure, not a long faced pious deed. And the Jewish doctors I worked with, who were aware of this, said that doing a mitzvah was wonderful: such deeds make one happy.
But God also chose me.
If I am a doctor, it was because I saw my mother's lady doctor as a child. I heard of sisters nursing the sick. I was given a stubborn heart so not to listen to the wiser who told me just to be a nurse, because in those pre women's lib days women didn't become doctors. (yes, even our faults are given by God for a reason).
But I also got scholarships --one that was available only for a few years. Born later or earlier, I would not have had the money to afford medical school.
But spiritually, being self sufficient, indeed I tend to tell God what to do...
But when I manage to shut up (Hard for a garroulous Irishwoman like me) and listen, there are times the Lord intervened and things happened that improved my spiritual life.
When I went to Medjugore, I had never read about it in the Catholic news paper (indeed, our bishop disapproved of that place, and forbad his priests from going there). The only place I read about it was in a Protestant pentecostal magazine that David DuPlessis went there and said he disapproved of Marian stuff but did feel the presence of the Holy Spirit and saw a revival starting. Then I read a screed from some traditionalist Catholic writer...someone I disliked because he was so self righteous and lacked charity...and after reading his "expose", I realized he was basing his condemnation on minor things.
The third reason I went there is that the group was led by a nurse who couldn't stand dirt, yet went there despite the pit toilets...
And I received grace, unexpectedly. I had gone to "shrines" and revivals, but never heard the quiet voice that comes in the breeze.... and several similar "coincidences" occured to me: Where I received the quiet impression I should do something...and there would be opposition and difficulties, but I did it anyway, and as a result I recieved Grace.
There ARE no coincidences...
Right now I am not depressed, and feel well, but even in my darkest days, I recognize that the Lord's hands are behind both the good and the bad.