Why I had to Quit...

“So you’re working there? Wow! Salary must be high. Great medical benefits you got there. Sosyal ka!” These are just some of the usual remarks I get whenever I was asked where I worked. Funny that though it seemed like I had one of the most privileged jobs in town, I had the guts to actually quit and choose something that was totally opposite of what I had.

For many years after serving full time as a Brev, I tried to venture on a career that was appropriate to what I was expected to be. I transferred from one company to another hoping that I will have the fulfilment I was looking for – maybe like pleasing my parents or getting the applause I wanted from people. Unfortunately, since my first secular job, something kept on bothering me. I felt that I was tiring myself running on the wrong track; thus, I was getting nowhere. Depression kept on creeping into me until I found myself facing a blank wall. It was totally dead end for me...nothing! Yet I felt that there was something more if only I would listen to the voice within.

Ah yes! The Voice! Many, if not all, usually fail to listen to the voice within. Simply put it, that is the will of God buried in our hearts even before we were born. Due to a lot of pressures following the standards of this world, we fail to reach our dreams and innermost desires. I read somewhere that our innermost heart’s desire is actually the will of God in our lives. Once we fail to follow it, we lose our way ending up unfulfilled and lonely.

Getting sick and dragging myself to work every day eventually made me think. “Why am I wasting my time here welcoming death earlier than expected when I can live a life full of joy despite its hardships?” I thought, “Well, I have a good salary and the job is too simple...” But then I recalled one of my favourite passages in the Bible which changed my whole life ever since I committed to our ministry. “If anyone wants to come with me, he must forget himself, carry his cross, and follow me. For whoever wants to save his own life will lose it; but whoever loses his life for my sake will find it. Will a person gain anything if he wins the whole world but loses his life? Of course not! There is nothing he can give to regain his life.” (Matthew 16:24-26)

I thought I found my life and was able to blend in with the secular set-up that I had. I thought I was preparing for a new chapter in my life that I had to lie low in the ministry and simply hand it over to the next batch. But then I found myself dying instead. I stopped dreaming. The secular scenario though easier to follow did not fill my heart with joy. It was a wake-up call when I recalled our Master’s Words. Indeed being in the ministry meant tiring myself unpaid; bearing the unbearable; loving the unlovable; suffering persecutions and being misinterpreted most of the time; yet if these are ways for me to give back somehow the Love of God that’s burning in my heart and to fulfill my dreams, then let it be so. I wanted to be successful in my life and to do that, I had to quit. I wanted to live...again.

They say quitters are losers. However, at this point, I suppose not all quitters are losers. Sometimes we have to quit so we can win. It takes humility for us to quit – accepting that there are things that cannot be and that there is Someone Who has to take charge instead of fighting it all out by ourselves. So when you feel like you are not making it in life or maybe you feel you are in your most terrifying state, quit...let go...let God...so you can live. God will take care of you. 