LIVING IN GOD'S WILL
William Mealand

IT IS OUR PRIVILEGE and should be our desire to live in God's will. So to live is a right and proper expression of our belief in God as the All-Wise and Supreme. We need to have an understanding of God's will that we may intelligently relate our lives to Him in all their varied detail.

There may have been a time, when, with the hymn writer, we could say:

I was not ever thus, nor prayed that Thou
Shouldst lead me on;
I loved to choose and see my path, but now
Lead Thou me on.
I loved the garish day, and spite of fears,
Pride ruled my will: remember not past years.

And, if not pride, it was some display of self which beclouded our perception of God's wise and beneficent will. But now, being dead to those offenses and sins in which we once walked, in accord with the eon of this world, our desire is Godwards, even to know and realize the blessedness and perfection of His will.

Living to please God has its own reward. The very happiness of a life well and wisely ordered, will always demonstrate the excellence of God's way. Obedience to the precepts of His Word will at all times ensure a walk well-pleasing in His sight. Life which is life indeed then becomes a continual experience, enriched by constant realization of its proven virtue.

We cannot do better than note how wonderfully Christ lived in the will of God. The accounts given by the writers of His earthly life convey so many helpful lessons that we are never at a loss for true incentive to a walk pleasing to God. He gives so great a lead. And never a word did He let fall as to the freedom of His own will. Rather does He say, "I have descended from heaven, not that I should be doing My will, but the will of Him Who sends Me" (John 6:38).

Did He not show by word and deed that He was here to please God, not Himself? And how it became Him, of whom God could say, "Thou art My Son, the Beloved. In Thee I delight" (Luke 3:22). True, our Lord's earthly life was at a great remove from ours, but what guidance would be ours if we thought more deeply on the character of His life and walk! Absolute trust in, and reliance upon God marked His every step.

How may we best know God's will in the everyday of life, with its stir and speed, its problems and perplexities? There are, I think, three good ways. The study and application of God's Word. Prayer, in its true sense and import. And circumstance, in the matter of environment. These are aspects of our theme we do well to observe, for they suit every age and sphere of life.

Study of God's Word. From Genesis onwards we have many incidents which illustrate God's way with mankind. The striking note throughout is obedience to whatever form of revelation God gives for the times in which men live. And whatever era we may be studying, we shall find much food for thought, and many principles as to the ordering of our lives.

Dependence on God is the lesson conveyed by all the books of Scripture, especially in the Psalms, where great heights of devotion to God find rare expression. As to guidance and wisdom for a godly walk there are splendid precepts in the book of Proverbs, and also in Ecclesiastes. Indeed, there is no finer philosophy than is contained in these writings. They present quite an epitome of wisdom.

With regard to our wishes and desires, how excellent is the request, "Give me neither poverty nor riches, feed me with food convenient for me." Dr. Bullinger, in a metrical version of Job, has an expression in happy accord with this desire.

"My foot unto His steps hath firmly held,
His way I have observed, nor gone aside:
From His commands I have not turned back,
His words I prized more than my daily food" (Job 23:11,12).

In the book of Ecclesiastes we shall find many axioms true to life experience, and it is instructive to notice how God, the Creator, is put in contrast with man, the creature. Our observation, too, will confirm the truth of many of its expressions. Just to give three quotations which have much point:

"Better the handful with quietness, than both hands full,
with travail and vexation of spirit (4:6).
"The race is not to the swift, nor the battle to the strong,
neither yet bread to the wise, nor yet riches to men of
understanding, nor yet favor to men of skill. But time and chance
happeneth to them all" (9:11).

"The righteous and the wise and their works are in the hands of God" (9:1).

It is good, is it not, to know and to feel that we are in the hands of the Potter? How Paul lived in the grandeur of this thought, desiring to be ever and always a vessel for honor! Perhaps, as no other, his precepts reveal closely he lived in God's will. And was he not always learning some lesson as to how he could do this more implicitly? I learned to be content in that in which I am. I am aware what it is to be humbled as well as aware what it is to be super-abounding. In everything and among all am I initiated, to be satisfied as well as to be hungering, to be super-abounding as well as to be in want...Now my God shall be filling your every need in accord with His riches in glory in Christ Jesus (Phil.4).

What a sweeping acknowledgment of God's munificence! Our wants may not all be met, but God fills our every need. Let us, then, say with the Psalmist, "Happy is he who hath the God of Jacob for his help" (Psa.146)! But why the God of Jacob? Think how God met Jacob when he had nothing, and deserved nothing, yet, as the God of all grace He gave him everything.

Prayer. As in God's Word He speaks to us in wisdom and in love, so in prayer we are responsive in thanks and praise. And, rather than asking or desiring this and that, the keynote of our prayers should be thanksgiving. In prayer we show our appreciation of all that God is to us, in and through our Lord Jesus Christ. Thus do we get strength for the demands and duties of the everyday of life. And what relief for the surcharged heart and mind, when need is great and comfort seems so small! God so helps us to bear, when, for reasons of His own, He may not remove the pain or trouble. Prayer, too, is the great antidote to despondency.

What value there is in the morning prayer, however brief its utterance may be! How timely the words of the Psalmist: In the morning, O Lord, will I direct my prayer unto Thee, and will look up. Let us, then, commit our way to Him Whose compassions fail not, resting in Him as we patiently wait for the Son of His love. In the words of a hymn may we pray:

Direct, control, suggest this day,
All I design or do or say,
That all my powers, with all their might,
In Thy sole glory may unite.

The circumstances of life. Here, in the occasions and situations of life, there is much to be learned by observation and experience. We thereby see in many instructive ways that our environment is ordained by God, ordered even to fine details, that we may the more find our content and happiness in reliance on Him. And that is what our Father wants, a complete relation of our life to Him. He would have us look through all causes to Himself in trust and thankfulness.

To this great end, therefore, we should avoid undue planning in the everyday of life. Our Lord truly said, "Sufficient for the day is its own evil." Let the morrows, then, as they come, be fresh from the hand of the Potter, even our God, to Whom as the Father of glory we daily look. Thus, as taking from His hand both good and ill, we shall realize the wisdom of His will. Nor shall we find that our intelligence is set aside. Far from it. God has given us an understanding to use, yet to use pleasingly to Him. As Christ said, "What is pleasing to Him am I doing always."

Living thus, we shall rightly learn how to choose and how to decide in life's affairs. Then will our decisions, our judgments and preferences prove to us in many ways the beneficence of our God. And in all our experience we shall find with Paul, that "devoutness with contentment is great capital." Indeed, we are the true capitalists who so live, ever and always in a spirit of thankfulness and praise.

Circumstances are a great factor in our lives. Yet even these are in the hands of God, and at His behest. Our reactions to them, and our conduct in them, largely show the measure in which we are living in the will of God. It has been said that "men are the sport of circumstances, when circumstances seem the sport of men." In the world at large we see this often verified. But with God's people, as they walk in the light of His Word and of reflective thought as generated thereby, it should not be so. We are never the sport or victims of circumstance whatever its character may be. "All is of God." And in this great thought we may rest content.

Acceptance of all as from Him is in itself rare strength, and serenity of spirit lies that way. The peace of God is at all times a desirable thing, and especially in the present unrest and chaos. After all, are we not just pilgrims, passing through, our citizenship not being here? We are but travellers, but to what a destination!

As we then proceed on such a way, let us be more than ever mindful of the blessedness of our course, lying as it does, in the supreme will of God. Life, whatever it may hold of mystery, is invested with a marvelous hope--"The Lord Jesus, our Expectation," even the all-glorious Christ of God.

This is the Father's high intention, His wondrous will for His beloved family. Let us then, be living closely, even expectantly, in such a will, for it will ever be our wisdom, our solace and our delight.