Table of Contents | 16. Can I know God's will for my life?
Whenever life becomes far more treacherous than we can handle alone, we turn to One whose intention for us includes guidance and light for our "sacred journey." But our human tendency is to try to make reality conform to our desires. We attempt to do this with any resource that is available to us, including God. I remember such an incident as I sat in Neyland Stadium awaiting the kickoff for the Tennessee and Vanderbilt football game. An invocation was given and the prayer came perilously close to claiming victory for the University of Tennessee Volunteers in the name of God's will. I haven't forgotten my own reaction to that attempt to make reality conform to that person's desires. I knew that God's will and what the invoker wanted weren't necessarily the same. I had no sympathy for that kind of prayer because it announces what one wants as God's will. Besides, I was rooting for Vanderbilt! Instead of seeking to know what God wills and "wanting what God wills," many of us prefer to ask God to will what we want. But, what is the will of God? How do we recognize the will of God? In 1944 an English Methodist minister named Leslie Weatherhead was with a friend whose wife had just died of cancer. The man grieved for a long time. Finally, he squared his shoulders and said, "It is the will of God. I must accept it." Weatherhead was startled by these words. His friend was a physician and had tried to avert what had just happened. He had used his skills and had enlisted the aid of others in an effort to save his wife's life. Weatherhead asked himself, "Has this doctor done all of this in conscious rebellion against the purpose of God while feeling that death was what God really willed?" He went on to speculate that had the illness gone the other way, his friend would have used the same phrase to celebrate her recovery. Weatherhead reported that this experience made him realize the utter confusion that exists about this important reality. So he preached a series of sermons in the City temple of London on the subject and they were published as The Will of God. Weatherhead begins by acknowledging that we get in trouble with this concept if we think it is a simple reality. The will of God isn't just one thing but actually exists in a variety of forms. The first form Weatherhead called "God's intentional will." This represents the pure desire of God when nothing impedes God's will, a will that is unfailingly positive and creative. It is found in the words that God doesn't want "even the little ones to perish." God is always and everywhere on the side of positive joy. However, says Weatherhead, humans possess freedom and autonomy. Power and choice have been given into human hands. And the story of history is that of creatures using power in ways contrary to God's purpose. When this happened, creation began to unravel and a set of circumstances utterly different from what God intended came into being. This was the occasion for what Weatherhead calls "God's circumstantial will." In situations that God didn't intend but which exist because of human failure, the question becomes, "What option promises to bring the greatest good to the most people in this situation?" It isn't God's will that any should perish. So what can be done to enhance the creative factor as much as possible? The resulting choice is what he calls "God's circumstantial will." Here is what this means. Jesus entered history as tthe son of human parents. As a Jewish peasant he was schooled in the faith traditions of his heritage. He soon came to the conviction that his mission in this world was to point human beings to the love and grace and justice of the Empire of God in which the harsh domination system of the Empire of Rome held no power. It wasn't "God's intentional will" that this one be put to death. God wanted this mission of Jesus to be fulfilled. But humans chose to reject the mission of Jesus and his "alternative social vision." So God was faced with several alternatives. God could have given up in despair or smashed the venture of creation in anger. But, no, even when God's best intention was no longer possible, God was "willing to spare not that only son but to offer him up for us all." This alternative held the most promise so Weatherhead called it "the circumstantial will" of God. The cross wasn't what God had originally intended but, given the opposition of human beings, the cross became the best hope for God's creation. So, Jesus drank the bitter cup of the cross and this leads to what Weatherhead called "God's ultimate will." Here is the faith that God is so ingenious and so merciful that God will take all circumstances and even the sins of human beings and use them to reach God's final objective. Human sins may thwart the purpose of God temporarily but they can't defeat God finally. God is so full of mercy and wisdom and ingenuity that God can bring redemptive good out of what is utterly evil. So what do I mean by "wanting what God wills?" The will of God isn't something that calls for a sigh of surrender to the inevitable. It is the option that is best because God's will is unfailingly positive and creative. That's the life we prefer when we understand God as gracious and compassionate. What do you think? You can reach me at BobSueSand@aol.com |