I’m not sure where the following thoughts are taken from, but they are worth considering again and striving to follow.
It seems there are three levels of maturity we pass through. They apply to our lives in general, but also to each individual struggle or issue we face in life.
The three levels are as follows:
We do what we want to do rather than what we ought to do.
This is immaturity. We are guided by personal desires and give little thought to what ought to be. We consider ourselves happy because we are doing what we want, but the happiness is always short lived.
We do what we ought to do instead of what we want to do.
We have entered the struggle of putting aside our personal desires and moving toward what we ought to do, which is always determined by God’s will. The problem here is that because we are in a struggle we are often missing happiness.
What we ought to do is what we want to do. This is the image and likeness of Jesus who did the Father’s will because it was his nature. It was who he was. Here we find joy and peace.