- Master. Let’s talk of God’s will. We pray to ‘Our Father,’ and we repeat Christ’s words saying ‘Thy Will be done.’ Every believer would like to adjust his or her deeds and his or her life to His will. The meaning of a person’s life is to fulfill His will. But how can we tell what that is? It’s understood that there is God’s general conception of the world and of us, there are commandments that God’s given to us. On the other hand, every day a person faces a choice of how to act, and the solution is not always clear. That is why it’s very important to realize what God’s will is concerning you.
- We live in a world where everyone relies on only oneself. Moreover, we live in a world where a cult of a strong personality exists that can overcome any obstacle and is ever successful. It’s imposed on us. But if we look closer at this advocated image of a successful, strong personality that seems up to every standard of our time, we shall see emptiness behind it. As strong, powerful and successful as a person may be, he or she can lose it all at any moment. Everything can fall to pieces if there’s no God behind it. Christ compared such people to a man who built his house on sand, “Everyone who keeps hearing these messages of mine and never puts them into practice is like a foolish man who built his house on sand. The rain fell, the floods came, and the winds blew and battered the house and it collapsed and its collapse was total.” On the contrary. A person who listens to God’s words and fulfills His will, compares to “a wise man who built his house on a rock.” (Matthew 7: 24-27) God’s will for man is that no one perish but that everyone have eternal life. God’s will is that a person be saved. God loves us though sometimes we can fail to understand His love because we might have our own idea of what this love should be. God’s will is God’s benevolence to us, His beneficial mercy on the person. Once there was a Russian saying, “God pities him,” it means not only that God pities the person, but also that God grants the person His participation in the person’s fate, His visits.
- God’s will is always good, and we often forget this when we grumble at what we go through.
- It’s hard not to grumble when we deal with illness or sorrow. But here one can remember what an old woman crying by the church said. When the priest asked her what she was crying about, she answered, “I think God has forgotten about me: this year I have never been taken ill and there has been no sorrow in my life.”
- Sorrow and suffering cleanse a person. By sorrow one becomes stronger; one starts seeing the world and oneself in another light. This is also a manifestation of God’s will when God grants the person something. The person might misunderstand it at first but after such an ordeal, such a cleansing, he or she will see other people differently. He or she will become a different person.
Our common problem is to co-ordinate our will with God’s will. God’s will does not depend on ours. No one can interfere with its realization. I will be frank. A human being, God’s creation, cannot even enter this sphere, cannot intrude upon it. On the other hand. Humans were created by God, so, as any creation, we depend on the Creator and participate in realizing His intention. Being God’s beloved creation, a human being has a unique gift of free will. Quite often there’s a contradiction within us between God’s will and our own. We have a hard time understanding the gift of freedom in choosing. Free will is first and foremost a will free from the burden of sin. And we’d think it means one can do whatever one pleases.
- So free will is God’s gift that we misuse, isn’t it?
- Quite right. It’s given to a person in order to have him realize the truth. Our freedom and free will is always a choice. For a saint it’s a choice between the bigger and the lesser goodness. For a usual person it’s a choice between goodness and sin. But even sinners are not deprived of this gift, of free will. They also have a choice. They can choose the lesser of two evils, of two sins.
- Master. I’d ask you to go into detail on the fact that a person cannot interfere with the realization of God’s will. I think that misunderstanding of this fact often leads to our resisting the inevitable just because we find it to be inconvenient, unpleasant, etc.
- The Bible contains the Book of Jonah. It’s a bit longer than a page. Read it. It tells of Jonah hearing, “the word of the Lord’ to arise, go to Nineveh, the great city, and cry against it for their wickedness had come up before God.” (Jonah 1:1-2) God, in His mercy, wished these people to be saved, “more than 120,000 persons who do not know the difference between their right and left hand.” (Jonah 4:11) But Jonah tries to evade fulfilling God’s will. He does not want to go and preach. He is not ready to become a prophet. By the way, many people make the mistake of thinking prophets to be those who can foretell the future. In reality, prophets are those who announce God’s will. So Jonah, though he’s been called by God to fulfill His will, tries to evade it. He even boards a ship that is headed in the opposite direction in order, “to flee … from the presence of the Lord.” (Jonah 1:3) When we read this book, Jonah’s character is easily understood. He is just like us and his actions are just like ours though it all happened in the around 70 B.C. Jonah could not evade fulfilling God’s will. He did come to Nineveh and preached there. The citizens of this city came to believe in God and repented. God’s will to save Nineveh was fulfilled.
- So it is impossible to evade fulfilling God’s will. Otherwise God will punish you. Is this right?
- This is no punishment. “You have not chosen me, but I have chosen you,” (John 15: 16) as Jesus says. A person who goes against God’s will is like Saul the king who finds himself beyond God’s grace. I’d like to illustrate it with an example from Metr. Innocent’s life. He was the first Bishop of Kamchatka, Aleuty, and the Kuriles. In 1823 the Bishop of Irkutsk, Mikhail, received the decree of the Holy Synod that ruled to send a priest to the Russian-American colony on Unalashka (island) in the Aleutians. The lot was drawn by a priest who refused to go, alleging his wife’s illness. Father John, who was 26 then, felt it was his calling and volunteered to go to this farther district of the Russian empire. His civil name was Ivan Popov and he was to become the sanctifier. With his wife and a one-year-old baby he took the ‘Konstantin’ ship overcoming lots of dangerous situations and misfortunes and finally reached the Aleutian chain. Later he translated the Catechism, prayers, the Gospel, and the Acts of the Apostles into the Aleut language and wrote the famous book Guidelines on Finding a Way to Heaven in this language. The book ran into scores of editions and was translated in many languages. Metr. Innocent’s children graduated from the Saint Petersburg academy, and he, ‘inter vivo,’ was called the apostle of America and Siberia. The life of the priest who evaded his lot was quite different. He divorced his wife and there were canonical transgressions so he ended his life as a soldier.
- So a person who fulfills God’s will gets relief, don’t they?
- I would not put it like this because it looks too much like a bargain. Scratch my back and I’ll scratch yours. The point is to feel one’s calling. If one feels one’s calling one will follow it ‘till the end whatever it is. This is so because of the inner-stimulating relationship between the creature and the Creator. How can we explain it when a person feels the calling? It’s God calling him or her and the person must follow. It does take an effort on his or her part. Every time when a person starts fulfilling God’s will he enters an invisible battle.
- Will you please explain what the, “invisible battle,” means?
- I’ll explain it so that even those who do not go to church regularly will understand. Let us recall how hard it is sometimes to get up in the morning and go to church even if you made up your mind to do so in the evening. Lots of obstacles appear. Of all kinds and that are not so common as every believer will realize. These are obstacles that pertain to the spiritual world. You’re planning to go to God, not to the theatre for instance. All these obstacles, whatever form they take, are against our good will to become closer to God. This example makes what “the spiritual battle” is more clear. One is to understand that everyone who fulfills God’s will dooms oneself to a spiritual exploit but every human being is to perform such exploits. Look, the word ‘exploit’ [in Russian] has the same root as the word ‘movement’ and a person must spiritually progress.
- But how can one tell what God’s will is? What could a sign be that can be interpreted as a manifestation of God’s will concerning you?
- It can happen in many ways. Sometimes these are life circumstances. Sometimes we realize something while praying. Sometimes we see a dream or hear something friends tell us. But it’s always by word. Everything comes by word. A person can hear a single phrase and it will change his or her life absolutely. It happened with a man who was not close to church. You can find this story in the book Pilgrim’s Frank Narrations as Told to his Confessor. When he entered the church, he heard the words from the apostles’ message, “Continually be prayerful,” (1 Thessalonians, 5: 17) and suddenly these words defined his life from that moment on. He wanted to know what it means to be continually be prayerful. Sometimes a person does not even understand what is going on with him but he’s just ready to hear God’s will and fulfill it.
- When Bishop Vasiliy (Rodzyanko) was asked about coincidences that sometimes lead us through life he said, “As soon as I stop praying coincidences cease.” Probably he meant such manifestations, didn’t he?
- Probably. But for a person searching for manifestations of God’s will, there’s a risk to sink into false mysticism when he might see a sign from God in anything. One must address a confessor to prevent oneself from this risk.
- Master. Is this recognition of God’s will a dialogue with God?
- Yes, of course it is. But prayer is also a dialogue and the calling we’ve been discussing today is from the word ‘to call.’ God calls us. It’s because when we turn to God we hear an answer within. It’s an inner answer. The person feels capable to solve problems. All of these are states of a person’s inner dialogue with his or her Creator.
- Master. How can one nurture this ability to hear God’s will?
- There’s only one way. At first, a child learns to hear what the parents say and obeys. Then it’s obedience. Then he or she goes to the church and learns to listen. What is obedience? The ability to listen. Then comes the performance. Here, it is very important to dwell on the motives of obedience, of performing His will. A person who fulfills God’s will, who listens to God, must love God and trust Him in everything.
- That is right. These are different motives: not out of fear, but out of love. A person, loving God, trusts Him and relies on Him in everything. What does it mean, “to rely on God’s will?“ To do nothing? Not to try to change the course of things?
- To rely on God’s will means to manifest the sublime love and the sublime fortitude because it does not mean that you shun responsibility and that you don’t live your life. On the contrary, you manifest the supreme responsibility to be a conductor of God’s will, whatever it is. There’s a prayer written by Metr. Philaret (Drozdov), the Metropolitan of Moscow. It was his everyday prayer. Read it and try to grasp its meaning.
Everyday Prayer of Metr. Philaret (Drozdov)
O Lord, I do not know what to ask from You? You are the only one who knows what I need. You love me more than I can love You. Oh Father, give Your slave that what I cannot ask. I dare to ask neither a cross nor comfort; I just appear before You with my heart open; see the needs I do not know. See them and do as You grace. Strike and heal. Depose and exalt me! I venerate and keep silence before Your sacred will and Your fates that are inconceivable to me. I offer myself in sacrifice to You. Teach me to pray. Pray in me Yourself.
Maximilian Voloshin
‘Willingness’
(a word for word translation)
Wasn’t it me myself who has chosen the hour to be born,
The century and the kingdom, the district and the people,
In order to go through the torture and the christening
By the conscience, fire and water?
Thrown into the gaping jaws of the Apocalyptic Beast,
Having fallen lower than it’s possible to fall,
In gnash and stench –
I still do believe!
I believe that the Supreme Powers are right
That they have let free the ancient wild elements,
And I speak out of the womb of a charred Russia,
‘Lord, You’re right in Your judgment!’
It’s necessary to anneal the thickness of our being
Till it’s hard like a diamond.
And if there is not enough firewood in the smelt-furnace,
O Lord, here’s my flesh, do take it!
October 24, 1921
Feodosiya
