What is the Will of the Father

Dec 2, 2015

http://www.usccb.org/bible/readings/120315.cfm

When we try and focus on God, really work at allowing God tospeak to us, a couple of things take place. First, we go quiet, and then we waitfor something to happen. Immediately, we begin to feel a dribble of stuff thatwe’ve got to get done. We try to push that away, because we want to be withGod. But the dribble turns into a full flow. We become engrossed in a wash ofdirty laundry, lists of chores, friends and family we should call, and in notime at all we’re exhausted by the expectations and urgencies of our lives.

Given this continual pattern in my own prayer time with God,I can only assume that our lives are much too busy for God. “Lord, Lord,” Icall out. Take this all away from me. But, he doesn’t do that. We’ve got to getall this stuff done, so that we’ll have more time for God. Or, we should justabandon our complex lives. Right?

Some of us are very good at knuckling down to the tasks athand, disciplined with daily practices of the essential things to do. There areamong us those amazing few who seem to accomplish more in one day than we getdone in a week. When we study these good folks we are overwhelmed by theapparent steadiness and rock solid behavior of such determined people, who seemdriven to get out of life as much as they can, appropriately annoyed with foolslike us; while we hide away, distract ourselves, and fall into mundaneactivity. We find ourselves muttering under our breath that life is so difficult.We see others seemingly capable of healthy spiritual lives, while busy as bees.Life feels like a sandy, shifty place. “Lord, Lord, help us,” we pray. And weworry. “Not everyone who says to me, Lord, Lord, will enter the Kingdom ofheaven.

Those who are these exceptional ones, though, are oftendisappointed in their frantic obsessions for perfection, and find it difficultto settle their hurried hearts. They find that hours have gone by in theirrustling up others to accomplish something they could have done by themselvesin minutes. Their frustrations with inefficiency and wasted time constantlyfill their thoughts with insults and outbursts that they hold inside, most ofthe time. They find themselves muttering under their breath that life is sodifficult. They see others seemingly capable of healthy spiritual lives,walking unaffected amidst the unfinished world. Life feels like a sandy, shiftyplace. And they worry. “Lord, Lord, help us,” they pray. “Not everyone who saysto me, Lord, Lord, will enter the Kingdom of heaven.

What? Everyone feels the same way? We’re all worried thatGod will not answer our cry, “Lord, Lord.”

Then we all go back home and give it a go again. We try andfocus on God, and ask him to speak to us amidst the bustle of life and thepressures of the exceptional ones, or the slow pace of the incompetent and theendless messes to clean up. We come to God in guilt, afraid that we’re not allwe’re meant to be. In no time at all, we are both afraid of letting God down,and afraid of being failures in the face of better examples of how to live lifeproperly, and how to walk with the Spirit, following the steps of Jesus, andknowing the will of the father.

What we hear God saying to us is to get cracking, get offour butts, and vacuum the house. Put our heart into it. Whether among the lazyor the exceptional, we vacuum. The next thing we know we’re watching TV to dullthe angst, or we’re straightening the pantry. We are searching the internet tofeed our news hungry brains, or find replacement parts for broken appliances.We tell ourselves we listened to God and vacuumed, and now we’re going toreward ourselves with some popcorn and Netflix, or reward ourselves with thebest stacked firewood in the county. We say, “Thank you, Lord. We’ll keeptrying to do better. We’re just taking a break from your burdensomeexpectations.”

That’s a a very sad scenario. We say, “Lord, Lord, help usto know your will.” We end up entertaining ourselves to escape from our naggingconscience, which we think is God, or straightening up the world to escape fromdealing with humanity, which we think is godless bunch of losers.

I believe we operate in this way because we are deceived. Webelieve in a crisis god. A god who is primarily there when we are desperate. Agod who hangs in the balance, rather than lives in our heart. We believe we arelistening to God, but we’re really just listening to our own conscience.

Having a good working conscience is a fine thing. It’s howto operate and function properly. It’s a living codebook that assists us inright and wrong. It isn’t a map, but like the legend of a map which explainsthe difference between a dirt road and a highway, an intersection and anoverpass.

Our conscience, though, is not God’s conscience. That’s whatwe need to consider in our relationship with the real God. We need to know whoGod is, and let him into our heart and trust that he wants to be with us.

So, here’s another scenario.

When we sit quietly to listen to God, we should expect theoncoming dribble of tasks and folks to call, mixed in with the projects,associates, schedules, planning, budgets, formulas, recipes, conundrums, and soon. These are the things of life, after all. Consider that God cares about allof these things. Show them to him. Talk to him about them. Ask him what hethinks, and let him assist us in each little thing. Then when the BIG crisiscomes, our call to him, “Lord, Lord,” will be be quite different.

God isn’t sitting around waiting for us to calm down andlisten. Well, yes he is. But not like we think, or have been brainwashed tothink. God isn’t the dentist of life. He doesn’t have a receptionist, who keepsrescheduling our missed appointments, with varying grimaces of disgust at our lackof proper priorities. God’s receptionist doesn’t force us to floss, to weighourselves, to go on a hike, or to examine our consciences. Those are the thingswe are supposed to do. That’s our formed conscience, primarily formed by us, bythe way, that tell us to do those things. Those are all good things to do.

It’s our heart that God wants. God wants to be there with uswhen we watch TV, when we stack the firewood. He isn’t asking us to put ourheart into things, but to open our hearts to him. From there he can help us seethe opportunities he puts in front of us – to answer the call from our family(he did that), to respond to an idea and pick up a friend to go shopping withus (he did that), to notice the wisdom in trading some hard elm with some softaspen with our neighbor so that two fires will burn more evenly and warm ourhouses better (he got us together).

When the dribble of schedules and expectations begin toslide into our conscience, all we need to do is invite God to join us inattending to them. Some of us will need to write down the stuff we have to do,putting asterisks next to the ones we have to do first, and where we ask God tohelp make the task tolerable, the phone calls more meaningful, and the choresmore fulfilling. And, God will do that. Others of us will need God to putreminders in our path. We’re not so exceptional. But God will delightfully helpus to get through each day. Each of us is different, but God knows how to bewith all of us. He’s already there, hoping we’ll include him.

God is not the dentist we need to go see, but the one whoholds our hand when we go to see the dentist. He’s the one who helps thedentist to be careful. God is honest about the pain. He soothes us. He neverleaves our side. The dentist is the crisis that God helps us to overcome.

God is the foundation of our heart’s desire, the one whom wewalk with, wherever we go. In fact, God illuminates our path, adjusting thebumpy spots, because not only can he make stones cry out, but he can smooththem too. When we allow God to be with us, we have a cemented grasp on how towalk through anything, because we walk on solid ground.

“Lord, Lord,” we pray, and he nods, and we feel the firmplace beneath our feet. We’ve been listening to him all day long, we’ve beenhearing him and become familiar with his more perfect will. We do not need toworry if he will know us, because we’ve welcomed him. He’s been with us everymoment of our lives.