Reflecting on the monastic vocation, Thomas Merton writes,
He who hears the voice of God must recognize that he is called to an adventure whose ending he cannot foresee because it is in the hands of God. That is the risk and the challenge of the monastic calling: we surrender our lives into the hands of God and never take them back. As to the joys, the hopes, the fears, the needs and the fulfillments that will come to us - we do not plan on them, and we do not evade them. Our business is to seek first the Kingdom of God in solitude and in prayer. The rest will be taken care of.