A fairly well-known prayer by Thomas Merton talks about the difficulty of knowing what God really wants us to do. This may have been particularly challenging for Merton, given his perceived call to promote pacifism at a time when we were at war, following a difficult period of discerning his vocation after a conversion from ignorant. profligacy during which he sired a child.
At any rate, his prayer, inspired during his life at the Abbey of Gethsemani - a place I love - includes the line: But I believe that the desire to please you does, in fact, please you.
I believe that the desire to please God cannot help but please God, because only the Holy Spirit inspires this desire within us. It comes from no other place. That isn't to say that all of the ways in which we try to please God are so divinely inspired; I think we misinterpret too many other voices' input as being from God. But I also believe that He still finds joy when we strive to do what we believe to be His will, even as His heart breaks for us when we misunderstand what that is.
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