A pilgrim's reflection: when 'yes' means 'no'

They said to him, ‘Allow us to sit one at your right hand and the other at your left in your glory.’ ‘You do not know what you are asking’ Jesus said to them. ‘Can you drink the cup that I must drink, or be baptised with the baptism with which I must be baptised?’ Mark 5: 37-38. 

 Today's gospel strikes me as a good example of how the holy things we sometimes choose with a positive 'yes' can represent a 'no' to the Lord. James and John ask Our Lord for seats at His left and right in the Kingdom. What closer place could there be but by His side? 

And yet, as Jesus' reply shows, the reasons behind their desire were not God-centred but self-centred. It also strikes me that this mistake of James and John is about the heart as well as the head. There would be nothing wrong with James and John taking a place beside the Lord if that is what the Divine Will required of them. So, where do their hearts go wrong? Where does my heart sometimes go wrong? It seems to me our hearts go wrong in wanting the glory of being at Jesus' side without passing through the sacrifice of obedience to the Father. What looks like a sign of affection for Jesus - for nobody could be closer to the Lord than those at His right and left hand - results from wanting something that is not of God: glory without redemption, a godless splendour. 

When I think I am saying 'yes' to the Lord by some grand gesture, or by the sometimes complicated ways I try to divine his Holy Will, am I truly echoing Mary's humble fiat? Or am I simply being a glory hunter like James and John? How can I be patient enough to let the meaning of His call unfold, rather than grabbing quickly for something I suppose to be the Divine Will? Teach me, Mary, the true meaning of saying 'yes' to the Lord in my life; 'yes' to the call by which He chooses me first (Book of Life, p. 13); 'yes' to the call, however humble it appears; rather than a 'yes' only to the glory I imagine for myself.