Contemplation and Action: The Virtuous Cycle

Today's morning reading was Matthew 12:46-50, which includes "For whoever does the will of my Father in heaven is my brother and sister and mother."  This is another one of those verses that boils it all down to something very straightforward: Do God's Will.
Well, when asked, who among us wouldn't say that he WANTS to do God's will? But we all know that reality is quite different.  Where's the gap?
First, we have to know God's will before we can do it.  My friend Jonathan Gregory has said, and I agree, "God will clearly share his will, if we will only listen."  God doesn't write it out in an email, or send us a memo with an action plan attached.  But God will share in many other ways.  We must find ways to put ourselves into the place where we can ask for guidance, listen for guidance and hear God's will for our life.  Contemplation matters.
Knowing God's will, of course, is not sufficient.  We still have to go forth and do God's will.  Faith without deeds is dead. (James 2:20)  James precedes that verse with the observation that even the demons believe that there is one God.  And they tremble!  (James 2:19)  The world is good at action plans, and here is our chance to learn from that.  Self-control, self-discipline, motivation, goal-setting are all great tools to help us turn knowledge of God's will for our life into doing God's will.  Remember, though, that self-control is only a tool.  Submission to God, which requires recognition of our true lack of control, is the context in which we exercise our limited self-control.
Overcoming these two hurdles to doing God's will - knowing God's will and acting on what we know - hinge on learning well both contemplation and action.  The two really aren't separate, however.  In fact, one of the core tenets of The Center for Action and Contemplation, is that "We do not think ourselves into a new way of living, but we live ourselves into a new way of thinking."
Acting rightly will make us wiser and draw us closer to God, which will instruct us further on the right ways to act.