I found this quote from Eugene Peterson in his book “The way of Jesus” to be encouraging and challenging.
The life of faith does not consist in imposing our will (or God’s will) either on other persons or on the material world around us. Instead of making the world around us or the people around us or our own selves into the image of what we think is good, we enter the lifelong process of no longer arranging the world and the people on our terms. We embrace what is given to us – people, spouse, children, forests. weather, city – just as they are given to us, and sit and stare, look and listen until we begin to see and hear the God-dimensions in each gift, and engage with what God has given, with what he is doing. Every time we set out, leaving our self-defined or culture-defined state, leaving behind our partial and immature projects, a wider vista opens up before us, a landscape larger with promise.