Will Of God 2 – Mystery made known
God has made known to us in all wisdom and insight the mystery of his will (Ephesians 1:9).
I suspect that, when we explore questions about God’s will, we assume it’s hard to decipher, that God has hidden his will, and I’m like a child poking my head behind bushes trying to find the little eggs God has tucked away with a message of truth inside. God’s over on the sidelines, saying “You’re getting warmer!” or “colder!” – or just not saying much at all.
In Bible times, the pagan religions were all about divination, seeking “signs” to figure out the divine will. They cut open animal cadavers and read livers, they unleashed birds and traced their pattern of flight, they studied the stars in their courses out in the dark. People were nervous all the time, fearful they had failed to figure out the whims of arbitrary, petty gods.
Israel, and then the writers of the New Testament rejected all this. “God has made known to us the mystery of his will” (Ephesians 1:9). Yes, God’s will has a mysterious element – but God has made it known. In fact, God is bending over backwards to make God’s will known to us. God doesn’t want us to lay out fleeces or gaze about for signs, which are notoriously subjective. God wants a relationship. “Rather than looking for some sort of wrapped spiritual package from the Almighty, I want to rely upon my closeness to Him” (Bruce Waltke).
We can know enough about what God wants us to do. And even when there is grey area and some confusion, we can still keep moving faithfully. We can understand enough to make sense of evil and agony without twisting God into some kind of cruel tyrant.
The very effort to discover God’s will is itself something God wills; the quest itself is fulfilling. To quit caring about God’s will, to do whatever I wish, to decide there’s no meaning out there, is horror and madness. To pursue God’s will, to insist there must be meaning and to grapple with God until we get at least a shadowy glimpse of it, is happiness. “In his will is our peace” (Dante).