My Food Is To Do The Will of God

God, in his mysterious wisdom, gave us a power of infinite importance; it is called, “Free Will.” But he also gave us two other gifts that work together with free will, that are intended to aid us in the use of that infinite power: intellect and conscience. God also reveals his will to us in the holy scriptures, and in the Incarnation of his only begotten Son, Jesus Christ.

With our intellects, we are driven by the desire to know. What is it that we desire to know? We desire to know the truth about all the things that surround us. It enables us to ask better and better questions and, finally, to seek the ultimate truth about who we are and who God is, as well as, what his will for us is. The gift of a properly formed conscience helps us to discern the difference between right and wrong, good and evil.

It is the gift of our Free Will that empowers us to choose to live in accord with, or in opposition to, what we have come to know, at this moment in time, to be true, good or evil, right and wrong. Because we are finite and imperfect, our knowledge will never be perfect. We must, therefore, always be humbly aware of our capacity for error. We must be ready to repent for our mistakes, and to always remain committed to the continuous, hard work of learning more. We are still a work in progress, after all.

As Christians, our ultimate desire is to come to know God, his truth, and his will. Jesus tells us in Jn. 4:34, “My food is to do the will of the one who sent me and to finish his work.” This is also what he has taught us to do, indeed, challenged us to do, with his own life. But to our cost, we sometimes think that obedience to God’s will is an iron cage, a limitation. On the contrary, as we can come to know, his will is to save us, to set us free, to make us whole again, and to bring all of us finally into his kingdom of eternal joy.

We are told in the Book of Leviticus, “If you live in accordance with my precepts and are careful to observe my commandments, I will give you rain in due season…and you will have food to eat in abundance, so that you may dwell securely in your land (Leviticus 26:3-5). And, again, in Jn. 15:10, “If you keep my commandments, you will remain in my love, just as I have kept my Father’s commandments and remain in his love.”

Our personal challenge, then, is to discern and to choose, as best we can. We must continually ask ourselves if we are, indeed, living in accord with the loving, liberating truth of God’s will, or not. Truth be told, none of us are. We all fail to one degree or another. But in faith, in hope, and in love we can believe and trust in God’s infinite love and mercy. Through prayer, scripture study, and communal worship, we can come to know that God’s love is true, and His will is for us to be in relationship with him, now and forever. With the gift of our Free Will, we can choose this relationship with God willingly and humbly, or we can choose to turn away from it in prideful disdain. In the end, it is up to us to choose wisely. “Fear (reverence) of the Lord is the beginning of wisdom, and the knowledge of the Holy One is understanding” Prov. 9:10.