If decisions are getting harder to find clarity, it’s probably a sign that you are maturing in your relationship with God. I was talking to someone about the next thing to do in their life and how it's been really obvious to them in the decision to make. And I thought, what am I doing wrong? Why aren't the decisions in my life obvious? Why isn’t God speaking clearly to me? 

In reflecting on that for a while, I ended up in a conversation where someone was talking about how it’s in the wrestling of making the decision that God is inviting you into, not the decision itself. Often, the most important thing is the purity of the decision-making framework, the alignment of the values to your beliefs, in choosing to draw near to God, etc. That allows the decision-making process to be the thing that bears fruit. 

I realized that’s the formation that the gospel presents to us. 

At first, the Lord gives us easy or obvious decisions to grow in security with him. And the more we grow to trust him, the more we are invited into deeper maturity. 

Look at the life of Saint Peter.

Jesus says to him, “Truly, truly, I tell you, when you were young, you dressed yourself and walked where you wanted; but when you are old, you will stretch out your hands, and someone else will dress you and lead you where you do not want to go.” You can walk around freely but one day they will tie a rope around your waist and be led. But the Lord doesn’t start there. He is gracious in building trust. If you are struggling with decisions or limited in your options, that’s a sign of the Lord’s trust and his desire to grow you. You can see this in how Saint Paul's references to his role change over time. He says he is an apostle in his first letter and his last letter—“I’m a slave of Christ’s Jesus”. This demonstrates the process we are in. A process where we grow in trust and humility over time where Jesus draws us further into his heart by encouraging us to seek his face in all we do.

So how does this happen? How do we move towards maturity? 

My path to holiness is finding answers to the wounds in my heart.

We are deeply wounded by the things of the world. All of us. False ideas about who we are and fulfillment. As I find the answers to those questions, that’s my path to holiness.

This is true because grace builds on nature, or in other words, spiritual formation deepens with solid human formation. Dealing with the wounds of our human formation makes room for our spiritual formation to take off.