My reflection on how I see the role of Obedience in my call to Priesthood

I feel that I am doing my best to be obedient to God's call. My experience of obedience to God's call is one in which I am losing my former concept or experience of freedom. For me, obedience means losing my own free time. For me obedience means dying to self. Obedience is calling me to surrender my preference for being an introvert. Obedience is giving rise to endurance and consequently strength in character. Obedience is drawing me into prayer especially when it demands me to step outside of my comfort zone. Obedience is also allowing me to see the ugliness of my me centered life and the resentment that I have toward God for calling me to surrender my whole life to him with nothing left for myself. Obedience gives clarity of vision to our own will. Just as fasting heightens ones sense of their appetite so too does obedience heighten our sense of the attachments that we have to self-will. Obedience also speaks to me of the words of Jesus to Peter: Most assuredly, I say to you, when you were younger, you girded yourself and walked where you wished; but when you are old, you will stretch out your hands, and another will gird you and carry you where you do not wish.
Obedience requires that we live according to God's time, which is the acceptable time of salvation. Obedience draws us deeper into friendship with God, reliance upon him and the awareness that he alone is our rock of refuge and support in life. It develops a capacity for solitude, for aloneness which gives aid in living a prayerful, celibate life.
Obedience is giving birth in me to an eagerness for the kingdom of God in which the celibate life finds completion. Obedience cultivates a spirit of detachment thereby deepening our availability and accessibility to be used by God for the good of his holy people. I find that obedience is leading me to the cross where I must die to self so that others may have life. It also draws me deeper into the life of Christ who out of obedience to His Father suffered for me. I feel that obedience is giving me a first hand experience of what Christ has done for us. Living a life of constant and on-going obedience reminds me and presents me with a real and fresh encounter with Christ・s obedience to the Father; an encounter which gives the strength necessary to continue marching on in the midst of the many trials and tribulations that are bound to come my way. Obedience is in a certain sense a distinguishing characteristic in my discernment process. I am aware of a strong sense of duty toward answering this call because of my firm belief in the divine origin of this call to priesthood. For me obedience is like the wind in the road which beckons the hiker's curiosity as to what lays beyond that wind in the road despite the fact that the hiker's legs are tiring from the journey, a journey which is not the normal path to which he is accustomed.