It Must Be God's Will

Ever hear someone put on their sad face and tell you, “it’s God’s will” for something that happens? It’s used from a range of matters from illness and death, to political elections and the outcome of war. And it’s one of the silliest things I can think of hearing, too.  The first time I finished writing this essay, my computer crashed the file.  Was it God’s will that I not write and publish this?  Or was it God’s will that the auto recovery function was able to save it for me?  Pretty silly stuff, don’t you think?

The “God’s Will” statement is at war with the very essence of what the relationship between God and mankind has been from the very beginning of creation.  God created humankind and said you can do anything here you want, have at it…but, oh by the way, stay away from that one tree.  Whether you consider it a factual story or a parable to explain our state in life, the fundamental fact is we were given ‘free will’. Free will guarantees that whatever someone else does affects everyone else, and whatever you do affects more than just yourself.  It’s a giant pot of bubbling interactions.

Now you can make a lot of decisions that will tend to insulate yourself or others from decisions that get made, and sometimes that works pretty well. You can go live in the middle of the wilderness, but it’s possible that decisions that a mountain lion or a bear will make may affect you, too. Life becomes a free will crucible for us all.

So what happens if you don’t take the fatalistic view that God is a giant puppet master imposing his will? (Which is absolutely not Biblical as I’ve said.)  How do you explain the parts of the Bible in which God intervenes directly in human affairs, like providing manna and quail in the wilderness or making the sun stop in the sky so a battle could fought longer and be won?  Or most importantly, bringing Jesus back to life after the crucifixion.  To me it is obvious that God retains the right in the creation he made to insert himself and his decisions at will. 

Jesus said “ask and you shall receive.”  We are told to continually pray for God to do things by the very same fatalistic religious leaders who will say “it must be God’s will that your husband got cancer and died.”  Doesn’t that seem bit inconsistent?  I think the more logical view is that God set mankind down in the middle of creation as a test for each of us who we would serve…our self-centered selves or God and our fellow kind.  That test goes on every moment of every day for every person, yet God also expects relationship and communication and responds upon request.  That response may be the answer you seek or it may be “no” or it maybe “not now.”  Many of those actions come through the hands and feet of a united group of believers who are seeking that very action from God.  In their uniting they surprisingly wind up making the changes they seek.  Other times (predictably, much more rarely it seems) things happen through no real effort from us other than the asking for God to intervene.

The other way the phrase is used is equally frustrating..."What is God's Will for me to do."   Should I be a dentist or a bartender?  To me God's Will is pretty simple...live your life in keeping with the principles He has outlined and the rest all falls into place.  Be the Christian He has asked you to be in whatever setting you find yourself and want to pick for yourself with that free will He deliberately gave you.

OK, this time the document saved and posted properly.  Was it the will of God that this happened so I could make the few changes I inevitably make when given the chance…LOL.  The end result of all this thinking is He’s God, he gets to do what He wants.  Most of the time it seems He sticks to the rule of Free Will for mankind…and just maybe that’s because we ask too infrequently!