Will Of God 6 – What God has already willed

Since the creation of the world God’s invisible nature… has been clearly perceived in the things that have been made (Romans 1:20).

What is the largest, most illuminating textbook in our course on the Will of God? Just look around. If you want to know what God wills, consider what God has already willed, and from that we can pick up on patterns in God’s heart, the habits of God’s desires.

Look at the world, God’s masterwork. Don’t let the view get blocked by all the phony man-made stuff – which might be evidence of God’s will, but just might be human chicanery. Look at the beauty of creation, the expanse of the galaxies, the delicate petal of a rose, the clouds gathering, the scampering of a chipmunk, the face of your grandmother or the fingers of an infant. Feel the warmth of the sun or the breeze at your back, hear the boom of thunder or the crickets chirping in the dark.

Creation teaches us that God wills beauty, and that God is delighted when your jaw drops over some wonder you hadn’t noticed a minute ago. And God made the world so big that you can never see it all; yet earth itself is barely a grain of sand on the vast seashore of the universe which borders – what? – God? This world cannot be mastered: for all our wizardry and technology, the wind and sea are too powerful; for all our brilliance in medicine, people we love still get sick and die, and they always will.

So God’s will isn’t for me to be able to manage my little world to my satisfaction, God’s will isn’t total security, health and happiness. God made the world with an edge, with some peril built in.
Dante spoke of “the love that moves the stars,” but love never guarantees smooth sailing. If you love, you laugh, but you also weep, and when we probe the hidden plot of the world God has willed we find both delight and agony. Evidently, this is God’s will.