GOD’S WILL, AND MINE

[Inspired by a recent piece in the April Magnificat by Msgr Romano Guardini]

Perhaps the most oppressive component of the idea of the “will of God” is that this involves what God requires of me to be or to do. This is “oppressive,” I suggest, because if it is a true requirement, then my failure to accomplish God’s will is indeed a failure that (in my mind) will leave God either angry with me or disappointed in me. This is aggravated by the difficulty in knowing with any degree of real certainty what God’s will for me really is.

This view is based on what moral theologian Louis Monden (in his important book Sin, Liberty and Law) described as the “Instinctive Level of Behavior.” This sets out God as the Lawgiver whose laws (or “will”) are obscure. Yet not doing His will by definition is a sin that requires punishment. This is not a cheerful understanding of the religious life.

Let me offer an alternative sense, based on a “Fr Monden take” on Msgr Guardini’s insight. The “will of God” is not over me but in and for me. In this understanding, the primary role for God is that of Lover who empowers me to love in response; His will is the desire that I be in a relationship, a communion of life and love, with Him. This view surely can inspire more mystics than the drive of fear.

God’s will has several levels. Universally, it is to be saved—“[God] wills all people to be saved and to come to knowledge of the truth” (I Timothy 2:4).

More concretely, this state of being “saved” and of having “knowledge [always experiential and not simply theoretical] of the truth” has as its purpose being happy, as the old Catechism assured us: “God made me to know, love and serve Him in this world and be happy with Him forever in the next.”

Finally, the question is what pattern of life will lead me (no one else) to that happiness (and produce spiritual peace within me, along the way). In a way, this is a bit of trial-and-error, but I am safe along the path if I remain a person who is 1. open to my heart’s true inclinations, 2. prayerful on a regular and listening basis, and 3. is committed to living a life of concrete love of God and neighbor. In this way I discover that God’s will is a power within rather than a compulsion from outside. This makes all the difference in the world. I will have internal peace even when external stresses try to overcome me.

As people (youth and young adults especially) struggle with their futures, I suggest this is a good way (with a spiritual counselor) of discerning God’s will—remaining open, prayerful and actively loving, knowing the response is to One who has loving desires for our happiness, now and forever.