Jack Beers:
“I'd love to get into a little bit on why you need to set aside self-interest and preference, because one of the things that I've experienced is, what do you do when God moves through you, when you open yourself up to God and God moves through you and you act on what God is doing? I could say that I've probably never been happier than when I follow through on what God is asking me to do. Then it, to some degree, incentivizes me to do that again. Now, I'll resist it, because I'm human, at different times, but there are certainly times where it's like, well, I'm going to do this thing that God wants me to do because it's probably going to make me happier after a certain amount of time. So in your mind, what is the relationship between self-interest and preference and that holy moment?”
Matthew Kelly:
“Yeah. So it's a great question and it's something I try to explain in the book, because I think it is really, really important. I am not saying set aside self-interest and personal preference because you should suffer or you should spiritually discipline yourself in this way or any of that. I'm saying set them aside so that you can really hear what God is calling you to. He might be calling you to do exactly what you want to do in that moment. So yes, you set self-interest aside, you set personal preference aside, but then in opening yourself to God and listening to what God is calling you too, he may give that straight back to you and say, "That is what I want."
I think it is a distorted and a depraved spirituality to say that God always wants what you don't want, or if you want it can't be the will of God. In fact, I think one way to measure spiritual progress, is over time, we should discover that we want what God wants more and more. Over time as we're setting aside self-interest, as we're setting aside personal preference, over time we should see God returning us back to that and saying, "No, that's actually what I want," because alignment in desire, desiring what God desires, is wisdom. He gave us the capacity desire. He gave it to us for a reason. It's a matter of directing our desire, placing our desire on those things that are good and true and right and just and noble, and ennobling to ourselves and others.”
Matthew Kelly
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