Doing God's will

[Byron Jack Gaist]

1 John 14: "This is the confidence we have in approaching God: that if we ask anything according to his will, he hears us."

I have been wondering what it means to discern God's Will, and to make our own identical with it, to say "Thy Will be done". Is this the same as accepting whatever comes, while struggling not to sin? If we don't know what God wants in each situation, i.e. if we do not have discernment, how will we know what to do (without calling our priest or spiritual father every five minutes)?

Also, if nothing falls outside the wisdom of Divine Providence, then surely even the radically free nature of our own will (mikrotheos is nevertheless mikros) cannot ultimately make choices with consequences which lie outside the range of His Will? These choices may be sinful and wrong, damning us as individuals, we may be tempted by the Devil in making them, but they will not ultimately prevent the coming of the Kingdom. So what I am saying is, can God's Will ultimately not be done? Can anything happen which is not God's Will?

I would also value any comments on the above verse from 1 John 14 in relation to prayer and asking according to God's Will.

[Anthony]

The Abbess Gavriilia seems to interpret the will of God in this context as being primarily the commands of God, i.e. the known expression of His will.

"The Lord said: whoever wants something, if he believes, he will receive it. Just as long as it is in accordance with the commands of God, that is to say with love." (Apophthegmata, No 95.)

She also says a lot of other things on the subject which I have found valuable.

[Byron Jack Gaist]

Dear Anthony,

Thank you for the quotation from Abbess Gavriilia. It certainly rings true that the simplest (and most difficult) way of doing according to God's Will is by following His commandments, particularly His commandment to love Him with all our heart, mind, strength and soul, and to love our neighbour as ourselves. Doing this, it seems to me, one cannot do wrong.

This, however, is a general principle. What I am asking here has to do with specifics. So much happens in life, some of it is pleasant and more of it is unpleasant (or at least it seems so to my own clouded perception and impure heart, one may contest this). It helps me personally to keep going by knowing that a Christian blesses and thanks the Lord for both kinds of experience, but I can't help wondering nevertheless what these particular individual experiences mean in the greater scheme of things. Perhaps it's a fruitless endeavour since it is clear that only God can answer that definitively, but might one not nonetheless grow as a Christian by thinking about this, talking to other Chistians and praying for greater understanding?

So again I ask, what do we mean when we say "Thy Will be done"? Can anything happen which is not God's Will? Is our sin, for example, outside the scope of Divine Providence? Notice that I am not trying to place the responsibility for our sin on the All-Good Lord, but simply wondering whether it is possible for us, in our freedom of choice, to ever go outside His remit for mankind or indeed, to upset His plans?

Another aspect of this is contained in the quote from 1 John 14 and in others, such as "ask, and it shall be given you". Do Christians find that, as they become more able to discern and obey God's Will, their prayers are more powerful and have more results? The lives of the saints seem to suggest this, but this particular sinner is still wondering - how do they do it? What on earth is happening inside someone when they are discerning God's Will, and how, by what criteria, can one assess whether one path is a better one to take in God's estimation than another?

If this is interesting to other monachos members, let me know.

ICXC
Byron

[Anthony]

Dear Byron,

I realized after I posted it that my reply was not very helpful to your question - even worse, that I might come over as trying to preach (heaven forbid). Actually your question is one that strikes a deep chord with me, and I for one would be very interested if others can pursue it further.

Anthony

[Byron Jack Gaist]

This article from the OCA seems quite relevant to what we are discussing, especially the questions at the end:

finding one's vocation (http://www.oca.org/RHArticle.asp?SID=15&ArticleID=6)

ICXC
Byron

[nurse-aid]

Cool and clear, breeze which is heals, sleepy and quiet, and wait to begin…
New and over, fresh and hot, spring day all over, HIS will, now, see in the flash!
It is rising slowly, no needs to rush, every moment is precious, like a single breath of ours!
Bow now; start to praise HIM! Sing a song, breath deeply, smell that air of HIS WILL!
It is tiny fragrance, you must be free, to feel that taste and able to see…
Connections and porpoise, beauty and strength, mighty wise Plan of HIS hand!
Now its warmer, sun almost up, air is warmer almost burning hot!
Time to work harder, up to the end, rest will come later, not now, just forget!
Take all your tools, go outside, work hard dear, under HIS sight!
Then stop and pray, stop and still, it is noon time, Noon for the song to sing!
And over and over, thought out life, work and praise, breath and smell His Will, feel His touch!

[nurse-aid]

Inside me my cave, inside me refuge, inside me my rest,
or the ocean huge…Huge desires and fears, tears and screams,
endless dreaming for better, or the sores which is not healed…
Choose what you want it; you have a free will, make your inside
quite, or the place of foolish dream…Place of the wonderland, place
of your own, own passion and fears, place were HE is never belong….
Choose to clean and wiped that place of your own, take yourself out,
were you are belong….Then let it stay still, for the time and for good,
starve and thirst outside, looking in, bagging for good…
Become sick and sorrow, lonely and lost, homeless and fearful,
for that terrible lost…Seeing no home, no cave, no refuge…bagging LORD!
YOU are Mighty and Loving, make me ones---my refuge!
I was my cave, I was my rest, when YOU dwelled inside me,
when YOU shared my place!
I cleaned it now, I emptied all rooms, come into, i’m waiting,
all those space for my Groom!
And HE said dear, I’M who is first, not you who invites me,
because I never lost…
You place never yours, it belongs to me, your cave is clean now,
say thank you, to ME!
I was wiping that dust, I was cleaning all dirt, I let air fresh in…
Preparing your home!
You was only dreaming, crying and want…
Well it is enough for me, see you wanted… wanted only ME!
So now I’M in… inside your home…I came first, don’t forget,
I’M not a host…I’M master of place were I dwell, were I live,
come into that place, that cave of your dream…
You are visitor here, but you can stay…as long as you want,
as long it is you aim, to share my suffer, to share my cross,
to do all dirty work and to bare all of that curse…
But my cave is Peaceful, because I’M in, it is fearless and calm
If you except me in…
So choose my dear, let me in and forget, that this is your cave,
Just give up your rules and keep strongly you faith!
I will rule, I will teach, I will do dirty job, in your own inside,
in place of refuge!
And I awake! What a dream, what a song!
I’m belong to HIM, or HE is my own!
And I sit and calm, pray and think, I put all this in words!
No No No…it wasn’t not only dreams!!!

[Effie Ganatsios]

Nurse aid, that was wonderful. Is it a translation of a particular text?

"Just give up your rules, and keep strongly your faith" - how very, very difficult for us to do this. Our egos keep getting in the way, we think we know best and just charge along, NOT letting God rule our lives. Another poster mentioned Mother Gavriela.... she was a good example of what "doing God's will meant". She literally left everything up to him and in 50 years he never failed her.

Thank you nurse-aid.

Effie

[Byron Jack Gaist]

Since Effie has mentioned it, I have to confess that I don't understand much of what you usually write nurse-aid (even your name puzzles me a bit!), so I often don't read your postings. I did sense, however, that this last posting had something important to say, and I read it through. I'm afraid I'm still not sure what you mean, but you sound like someone who has special love for God.

Forgive me if I've said anything upsetting here.

ICXC
Byron

[leandros]

Dear Byron,

Let me share with you my experience regarding the issues that you asked for.

You bring up several question, so let me take one at a time:

You said:"So much happens in life, some of it is pleasant and more of it is unpleasant"

Both the pleasant and the unpleasant parts of life are there as realities that make us realise ourselves as non-gods, they prevent us from making the false that Adam did. They make us realise that we are beings with restrictions and imperfections in our nature. This experience of living our human nature as non-divine makes us humble and help us realise that we are not immortal in our perishable nature.

In Genesis verses 3:22-23 "...and now, he might stretch out his hand, and take also from the tree of life, and eat, and live forever. Therefore the LORD God sent him out from the garden of Eden, to cultivate the ground from which he was taken." recording the providence of God so that man may live according to his own mortal nature in order not to give him the chance to "live forever" as a being with no deification. Using this deportation God protects the humanity of entering the hell that devil lives in.

This is the key point to comprehend "the greater scheme of things" as you call it. Us, being mortal and being "experiencing pleasant and unpleasant parts of life" makes us not being in hell with the devil, at the present time. Because this is the actual hell that devil experiences now and for ever: to be immortal, to be in a life without natural pain and imperfections and to be in NO PERSONAL RELATION with God.

As St. Athanasius says in his work On the Incarnation of the Word :
"For God is good, or rather is essentially the source of goodness: nor could one that is good be niggardly of anything: whence, grudging existence to none, He has made all things out of nothing by His own Word, Jesus Christ our Lord. And among these, having taken especial pity, above all things on earth, upon the race of men, and having perceived its inability, by virtue of the condition of its origin, to continue in one stay, He gave them a further gift, and He did not barely create man, as He did all the irrational creatures on the earth, but made them after His own image, giving them a portion even of the power of His own Word; so that having as it were a kind of reflexion of the Word, and being made rational, they might be able to abide ever in blessedness, living the true life which belongs to the saints in paradise. But knowing once more how the will of man could sway to either side, in anticipation He secured the grace given them by a law and by the spot where He placed them. For He brought them into His own garden, and gave them a law: so that, if they kept the grace and remained good, they might still keep the life in paradise without sorrow or pain or care besides having the promise of incorruption in heaven; but that if they transgressed and turned back, and became evil, they might know that they were incurring that corruption in death which was theirs by nature: no longer to live in paradise, but cast out of it from that time forth to die and to abide in death and in corruption."

This is also the case when the disciples asked the Lord, "Why do You speak to them in parables?" and He answered:
(Matthew 13) "Therefore I speak to them in parables; because while seeing they do not see, and while hearing they do not hear, nor do they understand. In their case the prophecy of Isaiah is being fulfilled, which says, YOU WILL KEEP ON HEARING, BUT WILL NOT UNDERSTAND; YOU WILL KEEP ON SEEING, BUT WILL NOT PERCEIVE; FOR THE HEART OF THIS PEOPLE HAS BECOME DULL, WITH THEIR EARS THEY SCARCELY HEAR, AND THEY HAVE CLOSED THEIR EYES, OTHERWISE THEY WOULD SEE WITH THEIR EYES, HEAR WITH THEIR EARS, AND UNDERSTAND WITH THEIR HEART AND RETURN, AND I WOULD HEAL THEM."

In your words, "So much happens in life, some of it is pleasant and more of it is unpleasant, that I can't help wondering nevertheless what these particular individual experiences mean in the greater scheme of things". In the context of Christ's answer, your honest and heartfelt reaction in this status of "KEEP ON HEARING, BUT NOT UNDERSTAND; KEEP ON SEEING, BUT NOT PERCEIVE" may guide you to use not your eyes, or your ears ( meaning your mind ) but to use your heart to "UNDERSTAND WITH YOUR HEART AND RETURN, AND HE WOULD HEAL YOU".

This path is followed by every Christian soul.

Then, you wonder: " So again I ask, what do we mean when we say "Thy Will be done" ? Can anything happen which is not God's Will?"

By this question you bring up the question of personal freedom.

Let me refer to some texts from the New Testament:

1 John 3:18-24
Little children, let us not love with word or with tongue, but in deed and truth.
We will know by this that we are of the truth, and will assure our heart before Him
in whatever our heart condemns us; for God is greater than our heart and knows all things.
Beloved, if our heart does not condemn us, we have confidence before God;
and whatever we ask we receive from Him, because we keep His commandments and do the things that are pleasing in His sight.
This is His commandment, that we believe in the name of His Son Jesus Christ, and love one another, just as He commanded us.
The one who keeps His commandments abides in Him, and He in him We know by this that He abides in us, by the Spirit whom He has given us.

Matthew 15:18-19
But the things that proceed out of the mouth come from the heart, and those defile the man.
For out of the heart come evil thoughts, murders, adulteries, fornications, thefts, false witness, slanders.

Revelation 3:7-8
And to the angel of the church in Philadelphia write: He who is holy, who is true, who has the key of David, who opens and no one will shut, and who shuts and no one opens, says this:
I know your deeds Behold, I have put before you an open door which no one can shut, because you have a little power, and have kept My word, and have not denied My name.

Revelation 3:20
Behold, I stand at the door and knock; if anyone hears My voice and opens the door, I will come in to him and will dine with him, and he with Me.

In the Revelation 3:20 one truth that comes as a surprise to many is revealed: God is waiting outside our hearts. He does not enter. He waits for us to open the door for Him to enter. This is what makes us Persons: by God's will and Grace a part of ourselves in our hearts is so exclusively "ours" that even God respects it as such. He let Himself "unaware" of our response to his calling. Not because He has a natural imperfection of lack of knowledge, but because He respects our Personalities and He wants to engage with us in a Personal manner. We are blessed with a gift from God that is our Personality. This is the reality that we live as an exclusive personal manifestation of ourselves. In this context God's will is not "all" that is present in the case that He stands at the door waiting for our answer. I dare to say that He is waiting for our will to be made known as a coequal to His will.

We are not living a life of robots in pre-programmed realization of a theatrical play written from God. In the context that you make your questions, I would answer that we are co-authors with Him not only to our human history, but also in the Divine way that the Divine non-historical transcendental life of the Trinity is. For WE ARE EXCLUSIVELY free to answer to His call and to receive Him in our hearts, a human act that has consequences to the life of Trinity Persons. Christ is either to dine with us or not - two realities in His Personal Life that we are free to fashion.

What all this is about, is living personal relations and not about our power to perform an act according to our desire as an exercise of our freedom.

Our salvation (meeting with God in a loving, personal, honest way) is an act of reciprocity.

[John P. Nasou]

Dear Nurse-aide: I always look forward to reading your offerings = because I can see within them your true love for Christ. I understand = that English is not your primary language, but through my 80 years of = translating for Greek immigrants I feel that I understand what you are = saying. This is why I have made the effort to convert your beautiful = writing about Inside My Cave into English which may be more = understandable to most readers. I hope that you take this offering in = the spirit in which it is given and not as a criticism of how you write. = With all my love and may Christ continue to motivate you through His = love.

Within me is a cave, within me is my refuge, my rest;=20 or within me is a huge ocean.full of great desires and fears, tears = and screams,=20 endless dreaming for a better life, or the healing of sores which do = not heal.=20 Choose what you want of it; you have a free will, make your interior=20 quiet, or a place of foolish dreams, a place of wonderland, a place=20 of your own, a place full of passion and fears, a place were He does = not belong.=20 Choose to wipe and clean out that place of your own, remove yourself = from were=20 you belong..then allow it to remain still, for this time and for all.=20 Starve and thirst outside of it, looking in, begging for what is good, =

ailing and sorrowful, lonely and lost, homeless and fearful,=20 and in that terrible loss.seeing no home, no cave, no refuge.

begging for mercy from the Lord!=20 You are Mighty and Loving, make me one with You, for You are my = refuge!=20 I was in my cave, I was in my rest, when You dwelled within me,=20 when You shared my own private place!=20 I have cleaned it now, I emptied all its rooms. Come within me, I am = waiting=20 within that space for my Groom!=20 And He said, "dear, I am who is first, not you who invites me,=20 because I was never lost.=20 Your place was never yours, it belongs to me.=20

Your cave is clean now, and for this you may thank Me!=20 I was wiping that dust, I was cleaning out all that dirt, I let fresh = air in, preparing for you a home!=20 You were only dreaming, crying and wanting.for what?=20 Well it is enough for me, to see you wanted.wanted only Me!=20 So now I am within it, inside your home. Don't forget, I came first.=20 I am not only a host, I am the master of the place were I dwell, were = I live.=20 Come into that place, that cave of your dreams.=20 You are a visitor here, but you may stay, as long as you want,=20 as long as it is your desire to share my suffering, to share my cross, =

to do all the dirty work and to bear all of that curse.

But my cave is peaceful, because I am in it. It is fearless and calm=20 if only you will accept me within it. So choose my dear, let me in and forget your thought that this is your = cave.=20 Just give up your rules and keep strongly to your faith!=20 I will rule, I will teach, I will do the dirty work, within you,=20 in your place of refuge!"=20 Then I awaken! What a dream, what a song!=20 I belong to Him, and He is my own!=20 And I sit and calmly pray and think, did I put all this in words?=20 No, No, No.it was not merely a dream!

[Effie Ganatsios]

That was beautiful, John. I would really love to see the original text. I hope Nurse-aid sees this message and tells us where she (or he) got it from. It would be even more wonderful if it were an original composition.

Effie

[nurse-aid]

It is inside you sleeping…wake it up, wake it up!
Trust and Love; you’re forgiven, no more fears, climb up!
Past and present, you know, is in HIS hands, all the time!
All what happened was needed, for you growing… on time!
Think if it is was empty, no deeds and no falls, what then
life was about, what for HIM to unfold….
Every moment is precious, because HE was there, with you;
seeing, crying and helped you, without showing Who is Who!
And the meter is only, for you to except, that we are all equal,
falling, raising and loved, if you want to except HIS healing,
except as it is, carrying all of this up!
IF you felt just except it, knowing that you are weak, He’ll forgive,
if you asked HIM, giving chance to be healed…
And when you excepted it, excepted with patience and love,
your fall will become your bottom, which you push hard to jump up!
And the deeper that fall, the more needs HIS grace, for you
to push yourself up, to reach top of that ocean of Peace-- HIS Place!
And all life is consisting of falls and jump up, it is life itself, no other one,
we are all just learning, by moving, by falling, by jumping up!
Whole of this is HIS, HE is in and in us…don’t reject it, except it,
fear not, beg HIS mercy, TRUST!
HE is the Master of what HE creates, never left, or forgetting,
never lost or cursed, never felt that nasty mood, this is not HIM,
this is only a devil’s force!
Reject it always, send away this junk, knowing that we are HIS children,
having HIS ‘seed’, having HIM inside us!
HE is Love itself, so…HE never will leave, HE cannot reject you,
when you beg HIM in need!
And when you are not crying for help, HE still near-- watch,
ready give HIS hand, when you sink down, for you do not be snatched!
Snatched by despair, by fears and doubts…HIS love will prevailed, if you
trust in HIS words!
IF HE is only, what you have and believe, like the only float among ocean,
on which you climb to be safe and live!
If HE is your Hope, your Trust and your Love, then nothing else exists!
And you climbing and climbing up!