The Will of God Part 3

Do you ever wonder what the goals of our lives God really has in mind? Somehow, I don’t think it’s the same ones we have. This is just a brainstorm, but I think it’s more along the lines of who we are inside, the way we love the people around us, respect the earth and the relationship we have with God/Him/Her. I don’t think it’s success as we see it and I think this will surprise a lot of people. I also think he wants us to have lives of freedom but freedom in a different way than what the culture and politics tells us. I don’t believe God discredits the stuff like a job or how we will take care of ourselves, he knows they are important but he also knows something we tend to forget. Those aren’t the goals in and of themselves, they are the trappings of our lives, not our lives itself.

I have this idea we get so caught up in “finding the will of God”, we forget what God has already told us He wants. “He has showed you, O man, what is good. And what does the Lord require of you? To act justly, and to love mercy and to walk humbly with your God.” Micah 6:8. It really is that simple. I think sometimes we come to Him asking what He wants us to do and I imagine He smiles fondly at us and replies, “I don’t know. What do you think? What would you like to do?” I think he likes us to voice our ideas and opinions with him and I also think our outside actions can both be good, his plan is the same with either one and we have a choice. I was walking down the street one afternoon thinking about a decision I was making wanting to just give it over to God like a child would give a broken toy to her daddy. I didn’t want to make the choice. I do believe God likes us to just give Him our problems so trustingly but there are other times he tells us something like what he told me that day. “Sarah, I brought you through that dark night for a reason. Look at you. You are not a child. You are a strong woman, a powerful woman. Use it.” There was no condemnation in his voice. Quite the contrary, there was pride.

God did not save us to follow Him like robots. He gave us minds, he gave us hearts and he wants to us to use them. If He really is inside of us, living within us, shining out of us, shouldn’t we trust that? Once in a while I will be talking with God and I seem to hear an answer that comes from inside me, something I know deep down. Concerned, I ask Him about it, if I am just making it up, and He asks me if it is something I think He would say. I usually answer I believe it is and He just looks at me knowingly and rather flippantly, asks, “Well?” as if to say, “What’s the problem?” His voice is outside and within me, I need to trust that. We tend to never look for “his will” inside our own hearts where we know He is. Why could He not express His wishes through our own? Why can we not look at the passions we were born with to find out how we are created to live? Our deepest desires can express His own.

I also think we can hear his desires through the voices of others. When I was in spiritual direction, a trusted friend commented to me I would make a great spiritual director myself. Her words resounded within me, as if she was calling something out that was already hidden inside. I thought about it a great deal, asked two other trusted friends and mentors what they thought of the idea, and then made my choice to enroll in the program. I probably did ask God at one point his opinion, but I knew in my deepest self that was my heart’s desire and other people I deeply trust confirmed my gifting for it. Why can that not also be a way to hear from God?

God’s will is not some pot of gold we chase after. It is the coins already in our pockets. He respects us, who we are, our opinions, our choices. He wants to hear what we think, what our dreams are. We create our life together with him, not follow a plan already written. We can share with him our desires. We can make choices for ourselves. He has raised us to be good decision makers and he believes in us. And when he wants to talk to us, we can hear him through ourselves, friends, and God directly. And I mean, come on, He’s God! If He really wants something in our lives He’ll make sure it gets there, in His time, but it will get there. In the end, His will for us is to LIVE life fully, not waiting to live until we are sure of the life we think He wants us to have.