I don’t know about you, but I’ve spent a lot of time thinking about this question. It’s kind of a big question, so spending a lot of time on it seems reasonable. But at some point, it becomes too much thinking and not enough doing, especially when what you should be doing is obvious. And chances are, it’s obvious and you’re just afraid to start. I let a lot of years pass refusing to see the obvious. Even though my earliest memory is of the first word I ever read, even though I’ve written nearly every day of my life since I learned how, even though I wrote plays and sent poems to publishers in elementary school, even though I’ve dreamed of being a writer all my life, and even though family members regularly told me I was good at it and that I should be a writer, it took me more than 30 years to figure out writing is what I’m meant to do. Or maybe accept is a better word. It took more than 30 years of my life to accept that I’m meant to write.

I don’t know why we make things harder for ourselves than they have to be at times. Maybe it has something to do with the way we admire people. We admire people who do the things we ourselves would like to do. We put our heroes on pedestals and don’t seriously pursue the things we long to do because we feel inadequate. We think we’ll never measure up. For the longest time I had this assumption that the authors I admire wrote effortlessly, as though beautiful prose flowed out of them automatically whenever they felt like writing. But it’s not like that for the vast majority of people. We have natural interests and talents for certain things, but it takes lots of work and practice to be great.

There’s a good chance whatever God wants you to do is something you already have an interest in doing.

Maybe it’s a dream you have, but you think you’re not talented enough to achieve it. Maybe it’s something you feel God nudging you to do, but you keep putting it off because you think you don’t have time or that you aren’t ready. Fear of failure holds us back. And even after we accept what God is calling us to, we have insecurities and setbacks that crop up and slow us down. But if we trust God, we know that He can use us to accomplish wonderful things. We just have to refuse to give up. I’m thankful God is always there to remind us that He uniquely made each of us for a reason. I needed to hear the reading from Saint Paul this past Sunday:

There are different kinds of spiritual gifts but the same Spirit;
there are different forms of service but the same Lord;
there are different workings but the same God
who produces all of them in everyone.
To each individual the manifestation of the Spirit
is given for some benefit.
(1 Corinthians 12:4-7, NABRE)

God gives us gifts and interests for a reason. It’s because He wants us to do something with them.