This week we’ve been searching for God’s will. We can be certain that God wants to be found and he will personally teach us how to live in his will.

Jesus said, “Don’t bicker among yourselves over me. You’re not in charge here. The Father who sent me is in charge. He draws people to me—that’s the only way you’ll ever come. Only then do I do my work, putting people together, setting them on their feet, ready for the End. This is what the prophets meant when they wrote, ‘And then they will all be personally taught by God.’ Anyone who has spent any time at all listening to the Father, really listening and therefore learning, comes to me to be taught personally—to see it with his own eyes, hear it with his own ears, from me, since I have it firsthand from the Father. No one has seen the Father except the One who has his Being alongside the Father—and you can see me. (John 6:43-46, MSG, emphasis added)

But as Frederick Buechner points out “Sometime we avoid listening for fear of what we may hear, sometimes for fear that we may hear nothing at all but the empty rattle or our own feet on the pavement”.

But there is no other choice than keep on listening
if we yearn to hear God’s voice.
There is no other choice than keep on searching for God’s will
if we want what’s best for us.

My plans aren’t your plans,
nor are your ways my ways, says the Lord.
Just as the heavens are higher than the earth,
    so are my ways higher than your ways,
    and my plans than your plans.
(Isaiah 55: 8-9, CEB)

God’s plans indeed are way better than ours. And when we can’t see a way out of our situation, God already sees us in victory. God is never early, never late. God is always on time.

Samiel Pepys has said “Sometimes God delays the answer to our prayer in final form until we have time to build up the strength, accumulate the knowledge, or fashion the character that would make it possible for Him to say yes to what we ask”.

We all know that waiting is hard but it is the best thing to do if we don’t get clear direction to move on. I’ve learned that when it finally is time to change direction God’s guidance is very clear. But most of the time we are to live our lives obediently and faithfully where we have been planted.

We need to trust that God is working on our behalf all the time. Even when we can’t see anything happening. Even when we can’t see how things could ever work out. God is not silent but when we are too busy or too full of ourselves, we don’t see what God is doing. Also, if we always expect God to act in dramatic ways, we might miss God working subtly in ordinary.

Living in God’s will means living humbly before God. Living in God’s will means accepting that God is God and God’s ways are sometimes mysterious. Living in God’s will means doing things as guided even when we can’t understand.

It is truly exhilarating to start detecting divinity around us.

The more we dare to listen to God,
the more we start seeing God in action around us.
The more we converse with God,
the more familiar we get with God’s ways.
The wider our spiritual eyes are opened,
the more in reverend awe of God we are.

 

Let us pray with the words of Dag Hammarskjold:

May God give us a pure heart so we may see Him
a humble heart so we may hear Him;
a loving heart so we may serve Him;
a faithful heart so we may live Him.
In Jesus’ name,
Amen

Q4U: How do you detect divinity around you?

Be blessed as you continue to humbly seek God and detect divinity around you!

Image courtesy of Pierce Brantley. Parts of this post have been previously published 4/2010. Linking up today with Thought-Provoking Thursdays.