Surrendering to God's Will

     Last week I began reflecting on surrendering to God’s will as necessary for true and lasting peace. This week I want to reiterate this point. Our Lord Jesus taught his disciples to pray, “Thy Will be done on earth as it is in heaven…” This will of God is as determined by God, not as humans want. Because God is perfect, only perfection issues from him. By this, I mean the “perfect” as seen through God’s eyes. The saints are unanimous in their teaching on God’s will as the condition for perfect happiness. 

     Very often we pursue happiness by following the dictates of our hearts and after our whims, without stopping to ask what the Lord wants of us. The world constantly admonishes us to “follow your heart” instead of following where Jesus leads. Imagine if we all had to follow our hearts, as conceited and selfish as they might be. To my mind, this is at the heart of a relativistic worldview where truth is reduced to how each one conceives the world, rather than what is objective and factual. Ever so often we hear people speak of “my truth” as though truth was relative only to the experience of the speaker. This type of worldview only leaves us with more confusion.

     Humanly speaking, there are two senses in which we could speak of God’s will: positive and negative; favorable and unfavorable. It is positive or favorable when what we want is in harmony with what God’s will offers, and negative or unfavorable when these two are at odds. When seen from the human perspective, God’s will might not be in our immediate favor, but it is always in our best interest. St. John Chrysostom is of the opinion that God’s will makes actions right, not circumstances. For example, I do not desire this weather because I want to be outside doing the things I love, but God wills that the weather in Northern Indiana is wintery cold in January. As some of us reason, the cold keeps the bugs away. I may struggle with this will of God, as I always do, but wisdom, which is one of the gifts of the Holy Spirit, teaches me to dress warmly if I must be out in the cold weather, while I anticipate the warm spring. I could also choose to relocate to a region with a warmer climate. I have used a very simple illustration, but there could be more weightier examples where my desires might not align with God’s will. But true peace comes from accepting God’s will and adapting to it rather than fighting it and losing sleep. 

     Another instance where God’s will might not align with our wills could be seen in suffering. The scriptural passage that readily comes to mind is the story of King David. When the child conceived as a result of his sin with Bathsheba, the wife of Uriah, became sick. David fasted and prayed for this child to live to no avail. As soon as the news of the child’s death came to him, he got up at once, stopped mourning, washed, changed clothes, worshiped and ate. He had initially rejected any food. His action astonished all who were watching. How is it that the king who was inconsolable and miserable that his child was sick suddenly feasts when he was told the child was dead? David knew what it meant to surrender to God’s will. He wanted the child to live, but since the will of the Lord prevailed, he gladly submitted to it. Was it what he wanted? His initial disposition seems to suggest otherwise. He recognized that God who gives also takes away (2 Samuel 12: 19 - 23). 

     Where in your life do you see the will of God in conflict with what you want? Are you willing to subordinate your will to God’s will or to forfeit your will and plans for God’s will? Will you lose heart and faith in God because his will is not in accord with yours? We can learn from the disposition of Job. Despite his faithfulness, he suffered a great loss. And in the face of his suffering he exclaims, “The Lord gives, the Lord takes; blessed be the name of the Lord” (Job 1:21).