My co-workers at the large Christian Apostolate where I worked as Director of Strategy Development used to call me “Nuke.”
That’s because I was always one irritation away from going off, raining emotional shrapnel on everyone in the vicinity. In some ways, my rage was working for me. Professionally, I was challenging and piercingly to the point to those in authority. I was solving problems and saving the company millions of donor dollars. Below the surface, I was seething with pain and anger.
One day I stormed into the Vice President’s office. “What idiot approved this?” I demanded, pointing to what I saw as a grossly mismanaged work schedule for our hundreds of employees.
He looked levelly across at me.
“Are you always going to be motivated by anger?” He asked.
In that moment, the Holy Spirit ripped into me. My heart was torn open.
I realized that I was a follower of Christ but I didn’t look much like Jesus.
I didn’t want to live that way anymore, but I didn’t know who I would be if I gave up the anger and abrasiveness. It was part of my fabric, and I thought that to rip it out would destroy who I was.
It took a year of wrestling—self-reliance vs. surrender.
Finally, surrender won. I allowed God to be God. I was able, by His grace, to bend not just my knee, but my heart. I laid down the control I’d wielded like a weapon and gave back to God what should have been His all along: my will.
I would never again be as “effective” at work—but I sure was acting a lot more like the Lord I professed to follow.
And I was beginning to know what I had never, ever known before: peace.
I’ll spend the rest of my life teaching people what it took me many painful years to learn: that when we truly surrender to God and to His plan for our lives, nothing will truly be able to shake us. We’ll find the peace beyond understanding.
And by allowing Him to reign, we’ll finally be able to rest.
My newest book, Finding Peace in the Storm, expounds on the wisdom of St. Alphonsus de Ligouri and offers modern readers a true path to inner peace—conforming our wills with God’s and trusting Him with our lives. I know this message, while timeless, is needed now more than ever before.
With the Church in crisis and the world on fire, we can quickly become untethered and despairing, at the whim of our emotions and imaginations.
I wrote the book for every follower of Christ—each soul that longs for peace they’ve been promised but doesn’t know to find it. I pray that you’ll purchase a copy and be transformed.
And then? I need your help with something.
I want to get this book into the hands of as many seminarians and priests as possible.
Can you imagine if we offered the key to peace of heart and presence of mind to those steering the Church through our cultural and ideological storms?
It could be the difference between floundering and flourishing.
Will you make a donation today so that we can send Finding Peace to priests and seminarians everywhere? Your gift today will make it possible to unleash the power of surrender and the gift of peace to those who need it most.
Donate here: https://secure.spiritualdirection.com/3-ways-to-peace
Thank you for listening to this part of my story—and for envisioning with me a Church anchored to the Source of her hope and peace: the unfailing love of God and His perfect Will.
I’m eternally grateful.
Yours in Him,
Dan Burke
Unum est Necessarium
P.S. Your donation will allow us to send Finding Peace in the Storm to seminaries and help these men establish a practice of prayer and cultivate a disposition of self-surrender and joyful self-giving. Transform the face of our future Church by donating today.
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Image courtey of Unsplash.
