Do not always be wanting everything to turn out as you think it should but rather as God pleases then you will be undisturbed and thankful in your prayer. ~Abba Nilus
Once, during a question~and~answer session, I was asked how to discern the will of God. I fumbled for a moment and then gave an answer that combined the Greatest Commandment (love God with all your heart and love your neighbor as yourself), the Ten Commandments as given to Moses and a bit of WWJD bracelet theology, “What would Jesus do?” For good measure, I also threw in a smattering of the Baptismal Covenant and the Catechism from the Book of Common Prayer.
Had I been prepared, I would have said that I believe that the “will of God” is the flourishing of all of creation, what author and theologian Verna Dozier called “the Dream of God.” She wrote, “The dream of God is that all creation will live together in peace and harmony and fulfillment. All parts of creation. And the dream of God is that the good creation that God created—what the refrain says, ‘and God saw that it was good’—be restored.”
Of course, this understanding of the will of God doesn’t give us easy yes or no answers about what job we should seek, what liturgy rite we should use on Sunday mornings, or whether we should even have church services on Sunday mornings anymore. Instead, this approach to the will of God asks us to consider the flourishing—the peace, harmony and fulfillment—of every part of creation impacted by our decisions. We are not asked to consider what has always been done, what would be most popular, or even sometimes what it is that we want. Instead, we are asked to consider what will move the good of creation—in our homes, our land and climate, our churches and schools and our communities and workplaces—toward being restored to the dream of God.
For Reflection
This Lent, what question of discernment are you or your faith community wrestling with? How could your discernment process change if you consider the flourishing of all of creation as the guide instead of making people happy?
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