There are many things we can do to serve God. Lots of good things, but not necessarily the one good thing God wants us to focus on.
It happens in parishes all the time. We're asked to do this and that. We run from one ministry to the next. Tuesday evening here, Sunday afternoon there, etc, etc. And who's laughing at us but Satan!
It's his "Plan B" for us. If he can't get us to remain distant from God by actually sinning, he'll keep us busy doing too many different things so we never have time to step back, meditate and discover what God really wants from us.
Psalms 139: 13-14 and 2 Corinthians 3: 5 tell us that God created each of us to be someone special so we can glorify him in our own unique way. But when Satan can prevent us from glorifying God by keeping us confused and disorganized about what our special calling may be, he's got us where he wants us.
My Story
Before I started this website, I often shelved the idea because I never felt that clear calling to do it. Then one morning as I was tackling all my secular website projects, I was suddenly drawn to a bunch of documents of lector materials I'd been putting on the back burner for years.
But how can we know for sure about where to best serve God? Is it really possible to discover that clarity about which path we should be taking?
God's prompting to me came direct from my site's readers. During my long-time pursuits of fame and fortune in the secular world, I never received the kind of thanks and appreciation in those places as I did from the readers and attendees of my writings and talks in the Catholic marketplace.
It took seven years of dabbling with Catholic writing to finally "let go of the plough" of my long-time financial and technology careers before totally committing my writing and speaking skills to our church. But now, there's no turning back. I am "all in" for Christ and our amazing Catholic faith from here to the pine box.
Though there were many dry spells and moments of discouragement in this website ministry, God always seemed to pave way for an e-mail or phone call from a reader of my site thanking me for inspiring them. And at times it was just that one email that kept me from shutting the site down, in addition to my wife threatening to (virtually) divorce me if i did.
So based on my journey from confusion to clarity, I'll offer this advice...
If you ever feel you're being distracted from a ministry that's closest to your heart because other ministries are getting in the way, pray for the strength to say "no" to them. And if you're feeling pulled toward that one ministry you love as I was with this site; then go for it with all your heart!
And most of all, pray incessantly to keep Satan out of your decisions.