“They did not understand that he was telling them about his Father. So Jesus said, “When you have lifted up the Son of Man, then you will know that I am he and that I do nothing on my own but speak just what the Father has taught me. The one who sent me is with me; he has not left me alone, for I always do what pleases him.” ~ John 8: 27-29
“Seek ye first the Kingdom of God and His righteousness.” Seeking the Kingdom is seeking God’s will, God’s righteousness; God’s purpose, not our own. I think it very appropriate to think about striving for God’s will, as seeking. It is, after all, a game of hide and seek in many ways throughout our lives. It can be elusive and like the wisp of the wind. Here today and gone tomorrow, sneaking in and out of our vision and our lives. Why is that, if it is so important to our faith walk, to our commitment to living as a disciple of Christ? Well, the real problem is that no matter how hard we try, we cannot know the mind of our creator.
It is similar to the picture of creation where our fingers and hands just cannot fill the chasm to God. That is why, in very simple terms, God sent Jesus: He is the bridge over that chasm. Because Jesus already had this type of relationship with God, He was the perfect example of knowing God, through Him. That is why we refer to Jesus as the way, the truth and the life. Jesus is the model we use for uniting our will to God’s will.
The struggle with striving for God’s will is our sense of space and time.
We get lulled into an ‘eternity mentality’ instead of living with a sense of urgency that Jesus encouraged. We tend to think that we have plenty of time to get it right, so we stroll through life not worrying about tomorrow. But Jesus taught us to always be ready, because the Lord is coming at an unexpected hour. The disciples obviously thought it would be in their lifetime and acted accordingly.
Our sense of urgency, however, has waned to a standstill. But if we choose to live in a constant state of grace we are more apt to live spiritually prepared for each day and the future. By living this way, in a constant state of grace, we can be more open to living daily or hourly seeking God’s will, in our conversations and in our arguments.
Jesus calls us to be on the lookout to the road in front of us, not waiting to see clearly in the rearview mirror. His priorities are supposed to help us keep those hind sightings to a minimum. We want to keep ourselves rooted in the present, mindful of our opportunities to be a living expression of God’s will playing out in our lives. That means that we need to see everything we do as a task of love. I recently read an article of a guy who owns a carpet cleaning business. He works six days a week and on the 7th he goes to the national cemetery and cleans headstones. He spends time thinking about the person they were, their families, their lives, all while he cleans the marker that marks their life as valuable. That is a task of love, and it’s also a personal sacrifice.
Today, we are given an opportunity to rethink some of our tendencies and realign them to be more in line with fulfilling God’s will on a daily basis in our lives. So, I’ll leave you with these questions: Are you a living expression of God’s will? Is God’s will an urgent concern for you? Are you living it? And perhaps you are still thinking “I don’t know what God’s will is for me,” to that I say: look at the priorities of Jesus, and start with those. What do you feel is urgent to you? And is it keeping you from God’s will or bringing you closer to it?
