On the need to Sort and Govern the Desires of the Heart.

Sometimes, even when we are trying to do good and be holy in our choices we are not succeeding. We will always have room to grow.

We always need to turn towards God and ask His advice, His will before we make a decision "on our own."

This reading makes me reflect. It also feels like a baseball bat to the gut.

My son, there are still a good many things you need to learn, things that up to now you have not learned properly. . . .

These: to make your desires wholly in accordance with my good pleasure, to stop being a lover of yourself and to become instead a zealous doer of my will. Often you feel within you the flame of desire, urging you insistently forward; but you ought to consider which motive spurs you the more--my honour, or your own advantage. If it is on my account that you act, you will be perfectly happy, however I make things turn out; if, on the other hand, there is a certain amount of self-interest concealed among your motives, you have something there with you will find a bar and a drag.

You must beware, then, of placing overmuch reliance on any preconceived desire of your own, forgetting to ask my advice. You might regret it later on and come to dislike what at first took your fancy, something you were eager for as being a change for the better. You must not immediately follow the lead of every feeling that you consider good; on the other hand, a feeling that runs counter to your own leanings is not to be rejected out of hand. It's a good thing to use the curb now and then, even on inclinations and desires good in themselves; otherwise, if they are not kept within reasonable limits, you may find that your mind is being pulled in various directions at once; others may find your want of control a bar to their spiritual progress; and if people start opposing you, you may even get thrown suddenly off your balance, and down you will come.

There are times when you have to get tough, and play the man, going dead against your sensual appetite and not caring what the body likes or what it doesn't, but making sure that despite its protests it gives in to the spirit. It must be corrected and made to serve you, until it is ready for anything, until it learns to be content with little and not to grumble at anything not to its liking.

~Thomas a Kempis, Imitations of Christ, p. 126-27

Powerful:
Sometimes, I see a good and think its good for me. I get excited and do my best to obtain that good. Instead, I should be more prayerful and reserved; first asking God if this is what He wants for me.

I just hate to sit back and let the opportunity pass me by.