Never put Christ in the center of your plan of action

Shocking title for this post. And I must say I'm amazed at this revelation.
To put you at ease, its not that I've decided to move away from Christ, on contrary its got very much to do with my discernment. The words in the title are just a part of a longer quote, so go figure what can you add to make it right.

It all started out at a small meeting with an old friend, updating on whats happening in our lives. So this guy is my age, and active in church. So comes the question of plans for the future, and whether he is discerning his vocation.

Anyway to cut a long story short, he's basically putting off discerning till a later time when he is more prepared. So the question of "Where is Christ in all this?" was put to him, and he answered with "In everything I do, I put Christ first, I pray before I do anything." Wah super model answer, stamp, chop, and send straight to sainthood.

And I don't find anything nothing wrong with the statement above, and its really the most basic that we should try. In fact I just realised that maybe I should say a short prayer so that my posts would be inspired.....ok done. ;Þ

But as we were talking on the topic of discernment and vocation, I realised that the statement was not the best approach. As I've learnt in Thomas Green's book "Weeds among the Wheat" on discerment, one of the fundamental things of discernment is "desire to do God's will". And as I was thinking of the statement my friend made, somehow felt that the 'I' came first, before Christ. As in I decide what I want to do, and I ask Christ to come and bless my work.

And just at that moment it dawned on me, that discernment was the other way round, to put the Christ before the I. So instead of "putting Christ into my work", it should be "putting myself into Christ's work". But of course I didn't say it out to my friend, as it might sound quite judgemental, especially as I don't really know him that well.

Then as I was sending another friend home, I shared with him what came to me during the discussion. And he asks me where I heard that from, cos he's heard that before from Fr Edmund Chong. And he shows me the message he keeps in his phone. So like I said, its a revelation for me, and I praise God for it. I shall end of this post with Fr Chong's quote as it's much nicer than mine ;Þ

"In all that you do,
never put Christ in the centre
of your plan of action.
Instead, put yourself in the centre
of Christ's plan of action."