The will of God?

Google Image

Traditional Christianity has always emphasized the need to “do God’s will.”

Fine, but if God exists, he/she is “out there” somewhere, so hidden that I don’t have a clue how to know God, let alone know what he/she expects of me.

That view sounds reasonable, but is it, really?

So many people in the world – you could say a vast "jury" – know this hidden God, maybe not in the way we know our spouse or neighbor but know nonetheless from God’s presence in the natural world, from Scripture (and that deserves a separate blog), and from the virtual certainty that all that exists didn’t occur randomly but from God’s creative genius.

A Career of Seeking God

So, about God’s will, let’s consult a person who made a career of seeking God and his/her will.

“How am I to know the will of God?” asks Thomas Merton, in his famous book, “New Seeds of Contemplation. “…The very nature of each situation usually bears written into itself some indication of God’s will.

“For whatever is demanded by truth, by justice, by mercy, or by love must surely be taken to be willed by God. To consent to his will is, then, to consent to be true, or to speak the truth, or at least to seek it. To obey him is to respond to his will expressed in the need of another person, or at least to respect the rights of others.”

Thomas Merton
Google Image
Before continuing, I should let you know that this book was published in 1961, long before most of us have awakened to the need to be gender neutral. Knowing what I do about Merton, I’m sure he would express that need in his current writing. He died in 1968.

And for those who know little to nothing about Merton, whose autobiographical book, “Seven Story Mountain” enchanted me in my youth, Merton was an American writer who, after a restless youth marked by the loss of both parents and years of searching for meaning, converted to Catholicism and entered a Trappist monastery in Kentucky. There he became one of the 20th century's most influential spiritual writers, inspiring millions through his books on prayer, contemplation, peace, social justice, and dialogue with other religions.

“For the right of another man,” he writes in “New Seeds of Contemplation,” “is the expression of God’s love and God’s will.”

Reading this, many Christians may get the notion that this is another case of “liberals” trying to reduce Christianity to a matter of our relations with others instead of focusing on God and God’s laws. But this advice from Merton comes from a person who has devoted most of his life to meditation, contemplation and focusing on his relationship to God.

Reflects the Gospel Message

I believe his message reflects the gospel: If you hope to have a relationship with God, you can’t ignore the needs of others.

Merton, who despite being a scholar and writer had to do the “menial” jobs that needed doing in a monastery – planting, hoeing, harvesting, cleaning, scrubbing, and teaching - then deals with our attitude toward work and its relationship to God’s will. Given the fact that so many people see work as a burdensome, necessary evil - a kind of slavery to economic realities – this should resonate with many of us.

“The requirements of a work to be done can be understood as the will of God. If I am supposed to hoe a garden or make a table, then I will be obeying God if I am true to the task I am performing. To do the work carefully and well, with love and respect for the nature of my task and with due attention to its purpose, is to unite myself to God’s will in my work.”


 

 

 

 

 

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

The Gospel of The Little Prince

Image
  Attention all those concerned only with “matters of great consequence:” Is it possible that you’ve become someone you didn’t want to be, having strayed far from the innocence and simplicity of childhood? That’s the main question asked in The Little Prince, which Netflix, the streaming video service, has added to its repertoire of movies and TV shows. Though not a big fan of animated flicks, I was a big fan of the book, The Little Prince, back in the 1970s when it became extremely popular in the U.S. It was first published in French and English in New York in 1943 as a novella by French aristocrat, writer, poet, and pioneering aviator Antoine de Saint-Exupery , who disappeared while piloting a Free French Army plane the following year over the Mediterranean Sea. Nearly Two Million Copies “The novella is the fourth most-translated book in the world and was voted the best book of the 20th century in France,” says Wikipedia. “Translated into more than 250 language...
Read more

The Wolf of Gubbio

Image
Google Image According to legend, around the year 1220 when St. Francis of Assisi was living in Gubbio, Italy, a fierce wolf began attacking livestock. And then it began attacking humans. It waited outside the city gates for anyone foolish enough to venture beyond them alone. No weapon was capable of subduing the wolf and anyone who tried to destroy it was attacked. Eventually, the public refused to go outside the city walls. Francis announced he was going to meet the wolf. When he neared the wolf’s den, a small crowd accompanying him stayed back but was close enough to witness what happened. Placing Its Head in His Hands The wolf rushed at Francis with its jaws open, the story goes. Francis made the sign of the Cross and commanded the wolf to cease its attacks in the name of God, at which point the wolf trotted up to him docilely and lay at his feet, placing its head in his hands. "Brother wolf,” said Francis, “you have done much evil in this land, destroying and...
Read more

The Morality of Nurse Jackie

Image
Google Image Sometimes as I jump rope – an exercise I’ve done most days for at least 35 years - I watch episodes of the series, “Nurse Jackie,” on Netflix. The show stars Edie Falco  in the title character, Jackie Peyton, an emergency-room  nurse at the fictitious All Saints' Hospital in New York City . It suites my purposes because the episodes last about the same amount of time as my exercises. I have mixed feelings about the show, however. I like the fact that it’s a medical show whose main character is a nurse, not a doctor. And there isn’t a nurse alive who's more compassionate toward her patients, and sometimes fellow employees, than Jackie Peyton. But she’s a drug addict, and watching her get through her days at the hospital or at home, and with her husband and daughters, boyfriends, drug suppliers and drug counselors, is like watching a plane tumbling out of the sky on its way to a horrific crash. Only Redeeming Quality? She engages in continual lyi...
Read more