Will Of God 17 – When God’s will is done

Night shall be no more, for the Lord God will be their light (Revelation 22:5).

Is God in control? Is God’s will done? We pray, “Thy will be done,” and this is the one prayer we know (with utterly absolute certainty) will be perfectly answered. In the end, evil will be no more. “God will wipe away every tear from our eyes, and death will be no more” (Revelation 21:4). All will be glory, everything will shimmer with holiness; every person and the entire universe will mirror the brightness of God’s glory.
But until then, in the meantime, there will be evil. The world will persist as a vale of tragedy, sin and darkness in the thick of beauty, goodness and wonder. “Until that final glory, the world remains divided… Life and death grow up together and await the harvest. In such a world, our portion is charity, and our sustenance is faith” (David Bentley Hart).

Charity – and faith. Charity: we love, we care, we anticipate that final glory to the degree we are able. When we pray “Thy kingdom come, thy will be done on earth as it is in heaven,” we seek not just a future, but a presence in which I make up my mind that I will be about heaven down here on earth. If social class, race or background mean nothing in heaven, they will mean nothing to me now. If tears are wiped away then, I will wipe a few away today. If anger and decadence will vanish in eternity, then I will be gentle, and holy today. I will love – not merely because God wills me to love, but because God has loved me, and I recognize the other person as somebody God loves.

Faith: belief is defined in Hebrews 11:1 as “the assurance of things hoped for, the conviction of things not seen.” We live today but with our hearts resident in God’s future. We are invested, not in the things of this place, but in the dawning of God’s eventual victory.

Yes, evil and suffering are having their day. But God is greater – and even now we see God exhibiting the stunning ability to bring good out of evil. Not that all evil must somehow be good! But God does ultimately bring good out of evil. When Joseph’s brothers sold him into slavery, God used their misdeed to bring life out of death; to read Genesis 45 and 50 is to explore the grace of God that doesn’t give sinful human beings a second chance, but that transforms evil into something useful, into God’s glory. “The world breaks everyone, but then some become strong in the broken places” (Hemingway).

Evil will finally be the occasion for God’s glory. Suffering will be the theater for God’s grace. Easter, after all, happened in a cemetery, and as Jesus’ tomb was transformed into a chorus of praise by the angels, so the entire universe will no longer be subject to decay and despair and will be a magnificent opera of music, dance, grand costumes, and artistry extolling God, whose will most certainly will have been done.