Day 33: Seeking and Stumbling

Approach
Lord Jesus Christ,
you call us to ‘seek first the Kingdom of God and His righteousness’.
May this objective be supreme,
as we draw near,
to worship you and study your word.
Amen.

Scripture
The kingdom of heaven is like treasure hidden in a field, which someone found and hid; then in his joy he goes and sells all that he has and buys that field.

Again, the kingdom of heaven is like a merchant in search of fine pearls; on finding one pearl of great value, he went and sold all that he had and bought it.
(Matthew 13: 44-46)

Silence

Reflection
The twin parables of Jesus are about two main ways in which people discover and joyfully sacrifice to embrace the realm of God. They are stories that illustrate the various ways that people discern their vocation. Some will exclaim, ‘Eureka!’ after a long search while others will stumble over their passion like a farmer striking a treasure while ploughing a field.

Melbourne actor, Terry Norris, describes the way he stumbled upon his vocation:
“I don’t know what it was; it was my Damascus experience, I suppose. I was walking along Exhibition Street [Melbourne] on a rainy Saturday afternoon and I stopped outside Her Majesty’s Theatre pondering my fate; you know, get a job at Rosella’s sauce factory or Ansell’s rubber works. There was a live show on, Rose Marie. The cinema was my dream factory, where I forgot my worries, but there I was outside a flesh-and-blood theatre and it drew me in. I had never been to live theatre. It was one shilling and a penny to get in, more than twice what it was for the cinema. The curtain went up and I saw colour for the first time. I remember that vividly. I was enraptured, my mouth dropped open and I wanted to be part of that magic. I never wanted to be on the stage, I just wanted to be part of the action.”[1]

Sometimes the stumbling approach to discernment is important when we have developed a prejudice towards a certain pathway or have consciously or subconsciously rejected a particular direction. This was the experience of author, Charles Handy who said: “Some stumble on their passions. After my dreadful schooling the last thing I wanted to be was a teacher. Then by chance Shell made me one, but of willing adults, not reluctant schoolboys. I loved it, and what you love you are often good at. So, to those who have not found a passion, I now find myself saying, ‘Experiment, try anything that takes your fancy, but until it turns into a passion don’t make it the centre of your life, because it won’t last’.”[2]


Journal
Stand back and look at your life. What is it that you are striving for?





What might it mean to experiment or to give some new possibility a ‘test drive’ in order to discover whether or not you have the aptitude and passion?





Selecting a Souvenir



Prayer
Loving God,
thank you that your call to us is personal and
the way you reveal yourself to us is absolutely unique.
Help us to be intentional in seeking you and the pearl of great price.
Keep us also alert to the treasures that we might stumble over in our ordinary routines, this day and every day.
Amen.

Commission
Lord,
let us be single-minded yet spontaneous,
seeking first your Kingdom,
yet surprised by joy,
at all that we unexpectedly discover.
Amen.



Copyright © 2007 Geoff Pound Making Life Decisions

[1] Interview by Chris Beck, ‘What I’ve Learnt: Terry Norris’, The Age, 6 September, 2003.
[2] Charles Handy, The Elephant and the Flea (London: Hutchinson/Random House, 2001),