Discerning the will of God

These are somewhat rough notes from a talk given on the subject

Introduction

Nothing happens outside of God’s providence, outside his will, in the sense of God allowing things to happen. In a ‘fallen’ world – fallen away from the desire for God – God’s will allows, for reasons we do not know, things to happen that are difficult, hurtful and painful. Partly we can say that this is to insure an orderly world. God makes the sun to shine on the just and the unjust. Can you imagine what it would be like is God made the sun to shine only on ‘nice’ people and not on the wicked! Also we know that unlike us God keeps his own commandments. God loves his enemies - even the very wicked on the earth – and is always merciful and desires the salvation of all (unless you are a strict Calvinist). Yet in the midst of this question about why God allows certain things to occur we have to act. The question is less, ‘why does God allow this’ but more ‘what am I to do given that these things happen.’ In this world we can be in heaven, in God’s Kingdom, as we indicate when we pray the Lord’s Prayer. We can know God’s presence and do his will and the lack of love for God’s will, which is the root of sin, can be slowly purged from us by the truth, beauty and goodness of God’s Holy Spirit taking up residence in our thoughts words and deeds.

The will of God can be known otherwise the Lord’s Prayer would be in vain ‘Thy will be done on earth as it is in heaven’. Epistemological humility must not become an excuse for not doing God’s will. Self-will is frequently disguised by intellectual sophistication in the hand wringing that accompanies much speech about it being ‘complex’ to discern God’s will. By this means we make excuses not to do it, which excuses are justified by a seeming sensitively to moral ambiguity and delight in abstraction and sentimentality. Just because God’s will is sometimes painful, does not make sense, or is a contradiction in this present world we cannot hide from it by appeals to human centered desires.

Heaven and earth are not divided for the one who seeks God’s kingdom. ‘Thy kingdom come’. The Liturgy as the great expression of God’s will and his kingdom, which is why if we are to do God’s will we have to worship. We listen to his word, we pray and we offer the creation to God in thanksgiving and God returns it to us as a gift fragrant and filled with God’s life, ‘the body of Christ (i.e. his resurrected life) keep you in eternal life (quality not duration).

The will of God for us is laid out most obviously in the life of Christ, in his teachings and their interpretation by the earliest writers as found in the New Testament. Since Christ is the Word of God, the speech of God, we find him also in the Old Testament, which we interpret in the light of the incarnate Christ.

We are not Jesus Christ and so there are things unique to him that we don’t have to do - like dying for the sins of the world. So the question is less, ‘what would Jesus do’ and more ‘what would Jesus have us do?’ We follow in his footsteps. This means we die to our own sins, to our own self so that he can become the true self in us.

God’s will, since it can be known, can also be done. God has provided everything necessary – he has given his Son and poured out his Holy Spirit.

The primary will of God – abandonment

The first will of God for us is that we give up our own will and die to self. This is total abandonment to God, ‘Let it be to me according to your word’. In saying this Mary, the mother of our Lord and God, indicates what should be the primary stance of human beings before God. We will never find joy or happiness without this stance. This may be irritating at first – because we think we know what will make us happy. But we don’t and we won’t until we give up the desire for happiness and seek first to have the desire for God.

St. Paul speaks of this as having our minds renewed, or finding the mind of Christ. To find this there is no substitute for prayer and extensive study of scripture and participation in the life of the Church. At the heart of this lies the Holy Eucharist. We receive into ourselves Christ life, to put to death those things in us that pull us away from the spiritual beauty and dignity we are called to possess as beings made in God’s image and adopted as God’s children. We need to befriend holy people, those who are dead (by reading about their lives) and those who are living (by meeting with them and watching how they live).

One size fits all - to be a Saint

In this respect every Christian has the same vocation or calling as any other Christian – to be Christ-like, to be holy, to be a saint. God’s will is that we grow in the virtues in opposition to the vices – in thought and word and deed. So we journey from:

Pride to Humility
Greed to Liberality
Lust to Chastity
Anger to Mildness
Gluttony to Temperance
Envy to Contentment
Sloth to Diligence

The New Testament contains various lists of things to avoid and things to focus on. For example: The fruit of the Spirit (Galatians 5:22, 23). Paul says, ‘think on these things’, and then he lists them (Philippians 4:8).

The secondary will of God

Then there is the more specific will of God, specific to our particular situation. This can only occur when we have sought God’s kingdom, ‘seek first God’s kingdom…’ If we do the first the second will of God, in particular circumstances, will not be as anxiety causing. We don’t begin by saying, ‘is it God’s will to take this job or that job’ etc, we start with God. This surrender is not resignation but joyful embrace.

Awareness of obligation – love of neighbor

In order to discover the more particular will of God we have to bear in mind the following:

We have to distinguish the areas in which we have freedom to chose from a wide variety of options (all of which would be moral and good, and most importantly, all of which we could live lives that are pleasing to God) and those things in which God’s will is clear in what has been given to us namely our obligations to Church, parents, families, children, and friends. We have to blossom where we are planted until we know for sure we need to be transplanted. America is becoming a very rootless society, no one stays put these days for very long, and this works against the stability of life founded in God.

As one writer expresses it: ‘to discover God’s will for us we must be faithful to Him where we are, faithful to and in the conditions in which He has placed us. One of the greatest obstacles to the discovery of one’s vocation in life, which is a clear expression of our disobedience and self-will, is the desire to be someone else, someplace else, sometime else. We have all heard people say that if only they lived in another place, or in another time, or with other people… then they could be holy. Or, if only they were married. Or, if only they were not married. If only this, and if only that! We must come to see how sinful such an attitude is, how crazy and deluded.’ (Thomas Hopko: ‘Finding One’s Calling in life)

If we cannot be rooted in where we are – in reality, but live instead in abstractions and dreams this is a very clear indication that we are not doing God’s will. Being faithful in the place we are placed is a sign that we are willing God’s will. And depending on our circumstances it is has varying degrees of struggle attached to it. So, for example if we are ill (and clearly this is not God’s direct will, but for some reason God permits it) then we should accept it and bear it patiently. This is far from easy, but Christ promised us a cross not a feather bed, he promised us joy and peace and righteousness, not a serene and vacant contentment. He promised never to forsake us.

Awareness of factors

So rooted in where we are we have to seek true knowledge of the situation about which we have to make a decision. We have to do our research about it, whether it be a job, or career change or a marriage or whatever it is. What level of knowledge do we possess, what don’t we like to face? We have to ask questions, imagine our selves in the situation; we must assess the pros and cons. Do we possess the intellectual capacity for the job, the background etc, etc?

Then we have to have self-knowledge especially of our desires and motivations. “Almighty God to whom all hearts are open all desires known, and from whom no secrets are hid, cleanse the thoughts of our hearts…’

We have to know what our desires are in order for them to be cleansed and purified so that we would truly desire God’s will.

We grow up in a culture which rewards and gives statue to certain careers over others, certain educational institutions over others, living in certain neighborhoods over others, driving certain autos over others and so on. Our desires are deeply socially determined and shaped and it takes time to root out this stuff and get to the bottom of it and face who we are. Not all our desires are wrong and not all are right. But it takes patience and waiting to find where our desires and God’s will mesh to produce a life that is holy and to produce a condition of freedom from which to make a decision. Obviously all our desires are measured against the specific will of God handed down in the Church – her scriptures, liturgy, Saints and Sacraments.

Suspicion is a necessary and good thing as initially we distrust any agenda idea, thought intuition and feeling we have before we have fully brought them to Christ and examined them against his ways. Such feelings, intuitions, agendas that we have give us data, they indicate what is going on internally and they should not be ignored - but they are not to be trusted as dependable guides without a lot of examination.

This means that decisions need to be made through a lengthy process. We have to ask, ‘am I particularly attached to one aspect of the thing about which I have to decide’? Am I fixated upon a particular goal (like maintaining a certain lifestyle, reputation or self image for example) If so then what is that about? Why is there a lack of openness? Why do we feel attracted to one thing and repelled by another? We reflect with others knowing that delusion is more possible when we are alone than when we are with others who love God and love us. To what extent are we prepared to be honest?

We look back at our lives at those choices that we made in the past that have freed us to be more loving. We look at choices in the past in which there was a bad outcome - what patterns in the decision making process did we observe. What actions did we take that made us more angry or fearful?

If something appeals to us and seems to be God’s will it is generally a mistake to jump into it right away. It is good to see if the sense of this being God’s will remains with us. When I am praying about it is there a sense of calm and peace? But we should we should be both aware of and beware of epiphanies intuitions, insights - momentary things that may have no lasting value. Is there a pattern to my feelings or just a series of episodic instances?

We must always seek the counsel of others. Ours is a lonely society in which everyone has to make up their own mind by themselves – and a terrible burden is consequently placed on the autonomous individual (the abortion clinics of our nation are a useful exhibit of this burden). We must think for ourselves but not by ourselves. God has given us other people – whether we like it or not. We belong to the body of Christ, of which we are members with other members.

Humility trust and Joy

There are no infallible methods for finding God’s will in the particulars of our lives - in areas like job choice for example. Just as there is danger in leading an unexamined life, so there is danger in being over scrupulous, overly anxious and preoccupied with our self. In seeking the will of God we will make mistakes. But the question is did the mistake come from the true desire to really honestly want God’s will, or from our desire to adjust God’s will? Forgiveness is always available. We must not berate ourselves overly much. There isn’t time to waste on self-pity. Having learnt from our mistake we must get up and rejoin the fight to desire and do God’s will and continue the journey.

There is often not a lot of illumination for we live by faith. God wants to teach us abandonment, our desire to do his will, to do our best at any moment is what God wants for us here and now. Abandonment or revolt in the depths of our soul is the fundamental orientation. This becomes a transcendent and mystic joy and the peace of God, which passes all understanding, can be a radiant presence in our souls.

Therefore in all this we have to take up the cross. This means we repent, which is to face in another direction to get things in the correct order. We face away from ourselves and towards Christ. We read scripture, we pray, we worship, we look out for the needs of others. We examine our life according to the commandments and in particular to Jesus’ interpretation of them through his holy apostles.

Seeking God’s will means we look critically and with suspicion at every idea, thought, agenda, intuition, and desire that we have; and (being very much aware of what those things are) we take them to Christ and examine them against his teaching, against the values of the kingdom.

Summary - the beginning of the matter is also the end – the desire for God

Self will is to be replaced by God’s will. Once we begin to think we can rely on our own life and our own ideas then we will fall. How can we receive advice and direction if we think we know and can do everything without direction? This is contrary to the exaltation of the self that is propagated by the culture which says, ‘find yourself’, and ‘trust your feelings’. There is no self to find, and no feeling to trust, we must find God and trust God. Christ says those who want to save their ‘life’ will lose it. Our lives, and hence all our thoughts and desires are incomplete, we cannot find our life by searching for it only within our internal disorder and multiplicity of conflicting feelings. Our true self is Christ himself who is the image of God.

This means a single goal, namely seeking first the kingdom of God and trusting that God will arrange that everything else will fall into place. Seeking the kingdom in the details of our lives, in our thoughts, words and deeds - in our aspirations, plans, and actions. Sin, the lack of love for God’s will, begins in our thoughts, in the internal passions, so we replace them with the remembrance of Christ.

This is hard work; there is no way around it. It requires great attention, alertness, and discipline. It does not come naturally, if it did why would we need a Savior. Why do all human beings feel some level of unease about their life, some sense of dissatisfaction, if the natural self is enough?

The great teachers of the church call this an ‘invisible warfare’, a war engaged against the enemies of our soul. And this matter is between God and us, so we don’t unnecessarily talk about it to others, which only leads to boasting or speculation about our progress. If we do talk about it to another we should go to a respected and more mature Christian.

We should greet everything that’s comes to us in life as being filled with the possibility for us to grow in reflecting the divine image and life. So if we face terminal illness, to take an extreme example, this is an opportunity to display faithfulness to God, rather than self-pity. This is incredibly difficult, but Christ never deluded us by promising us an easy road, he merely promised us a kingdom and a joy and a peace that this world cannot give. He will never leave us or forsake us, and he is the one who both told us to take up the cross but also is ever present to help us in carrying it.

website sitemap

All Hallows Episcopal Church, Wyncote, PA 19095 - 215 885-1641