Where to find effectiveness

OF course, we have to use all the means to be effective.

Like, we need to be clear with our goals to reach, the relevant

resources we need, the time-frame in which we work, etc. But let us

realize that all these are more to assure us of being efficient than

of being effective. Efficiency is not necessarily effectiveness. We

can be efficient without being effective.

   

            Effectiveness is mainly about reaching our real goal, our

ultimate end. It is not about attaining some secondary goals that

admittedly are also important, since without them we cannot reach our

ultimate goal. We may be successful in reaching our secondary goals,

but if we miss the principal one, we actually have failed. Sad to say,

this is the common phenomenon nowadays.

   

            We need to realize that our ultimate goal is to be with

God, to conform ourselves as fully as we can to God’s will and ways.

And this is because we come from him and we belong to him. We are

still being created and redeemed by God. We have to be most aware of

this fundamental truth about ourselves.

  

            And all this is more a matter of the spiritual dimension

of our life more than of the material and the external aspects of our

life which, of course, are also very important. As Christ said, “What

does it a profit a man if he gains the whole world but loses his own

soul.” (Mk 8,36) We need to realize more deeply that everything that

we do should begin and end with God. Otherwise, we would be making our

own world.

  

            So, it should be a constant question we ask ourselves: “Is

what I am doing now what God wants me to do, in the manner God wants

it? Or am I just doing my own will, or worse, considering my will to

be God’s will?”

  

            The immediate corollary of this realization is that we

need to be truly united with God. And this is always possible as long

as we live a life of prayer. It is prayer with all its complement,

like the recourse to the sacraments, assimilating the doctrine of our

faith, the willingness to make sacrifices and to grow in the virtues,

etc., that assures us of this union with God.

  

            It’s in our prayer that we become keenly and promptly

aware of what God wants of us in any given moment, without getting

lost in the generics of what is true, good and beautiful, something

that usually happens. We may be doing a lot of good things, but not

what God wants us to do. The real good, amid the many choices of good

things, is simply what God wants us to do.

  

            Our prayer should be a genuine, intimate and abiding

contact with God. And we should know how to convert everything into

prayer, always relating ourselves and things to him and always trying

to see him and his designs in every event and situation in our life.

God’s providence is constant and universal. It does not stop even if

we mess up things.

   

            Thus, prayer is not just about saying vocal prayers and

making novenas and other special acts. It is more a matter of

awareness, of attitude, of lifting our mind and heart to God in a

stable manner. It lends itself to endless ways, forms and manners. We

can even pray when we are asleep. In short, prayer is very much

doable.

   

            It’s when we pray and truly become united with God when we

can echo Christ’s words: “I have come down from heaven not to do my

will but to do the will of him who sent me.” (Jn 6,38) These words

should be like the motto of our whole life. They truly make us

effective!