God's will

[For Charlie's earlier adventure, see the post titled Different (in the archive for December 2005).]

* * * * * * *

“Charlie! Hey Charlie, wait up…”

Charlie turned around when he heard the voice. “Jimmy. Good to see you! You back from the university?” Charlie had been on his usual morning walk through the neighborhood when his good friend Jim Willis came running up from behind.

“Just for the Thanksgiving holiday. I’ll be going back next week.”

“Well how are you doing? …How’s the thesis coming?”

Charlie had known Jim since he was born—before he was born in fact. Indeed, he and his family had been friends with the Willises for nearly as long as he could remember, going on, oh… close to 65 years now.

“Oh fine… I still have a few points I have to work out, but it’s coming along.” They were walking side-by-side now but Charlie had slowed his usual brisk pace to a more casual, conversational stroll.

“What’s on your mind?”

There was a long thoughtful pause before Jim opened his mouth to speak. “You’ve been friends with my dad a long time…”

“All my life. And I knew your grandfather too, when I was just a young-un. We used to go to his church down on 16th Street for years and years.”

“I didn’t know you were a Lutheran too. I always thought you were…”

“Catholic? I am. I converted when I was… well, in my early college years. But what were you saying… about your dad?”

“Oh it’s… I don’t know. It’s not even about him. I’m a little… I’ve been thinking about… Charlie, how do you know what it is that God wants you to do? I mean, when you’re faced with… a fork in the road… or maybe two or three. How do you make the right choice? How do you know what you’re… What’s the best thing to do…?”

The older man pressed his lips together. “…Mmm… That’s a good one. What kind of choices are we talking about?”

“I want to finish my degree. But… I’m not sure Janice is going to like what I’m planning to…" (long pause, then a sigh). "I think I’m supposed to go to Peru.”

Charlie arched his eyebrows and took a sideways glance at his young friend. “What’s in Peru?”

“Dad just learned about a mission down there that needs… well it was nearly wiped out in that big flood last year.”

“I remember the flood; it was all over the news. And… you want to help rebuild this mission. But you’re not really sure it’s what you want to do? Or rather what God wants you to do? Have you talked to Janice about it?”

“Uh-uh, not yet. Dad only told me about it on Sunday and I’d been thinking about it on the flight and all. We talked about it a little when he picked me up at the airport yesterday. To tell you the truth, I’m not sure how to even bring it up with her. I was hoping we could get married next year, but this could change everything!”

“And you want me to tell you how to discern God’s will in all this, right?”

Jim didn’t answer. He didn’t have to.

After a long thoughtful pause, Charlie started slowly, “You know, Jimmy, it’s natural for a man to think of God’s will as something ‘out there’ somewhere,” (he gestured with a short sweep of his arm) “some big job in a far away place that he’s sure God wants him to do. Save the world, or at least a reasonable piece of it. All he has to do is pray and listen for God to tell him what it is. And sometimes that’s it, God might have a ‘big job’ for him to do.

“But for most of us, that’s not the case. For most of us—and I’d say for all of us most of the time—God’s will is right in front of us, right under our noses, staring us in the face. Moment-by-moment. And it’s right in here too,” (he tapped his finger on his own chest). “God’s will for each of us always starts with changing our own hearts—constantly working at the little sins and faults every day in our own lives. God sends his grace on us all, like the rain, but if we want his help to clean sin out of our lives, we can’t go around with an umbrella, you know what I mean?”

“Yeah, don’t put barriers in the way. Let God work on us.”

“That’s right. And not just that, but work along with God, cooperate with his grace. He wants us to try too, not just sit there passively and expect Him to do it all for us. ‘Work out our own salvation with fear and trembling,’ I believe St. Paul put it. I hope that’s not too ‘Catholic’ an idea for you.”

“Oh no, I understand. I believe that too.”

“And it’s usually our ordinary sinful tendencies that block our inner vision from seeing what it is that God wants us to do, not just out there, but right here, right now. We don’t have to go out looking for God’s will. It comes looking for us. We just have to live it when it finds us. Usually, we can’t see God’s will coming at us before it actually hits us and lands in our lap. It’s usually the little things—no, I take that back; it’s always the little things—that come across our path every minute of the day. You don’t have to plan out doing God’s will. He’s already done that. He’s in charge of the Big Picture, and all the little details too. There are no accidents. It’s all God’s will, either ordained or permitted. What we have to wrestle with is what to do right now, do the right thing this minute and not worry about what may or may not happen the next minute, because that’s in God’s hands. You know right from wrong, Jimmy! It’s not that hard, right? God knows what He wants us to do, project-wise, and He will open the doors ahead of us. Open up some and close others, hm? Our job is to do what our hearts tell us is right (assuming you have a well-formed conscience, of course), follow our interests, like your degree for instance, and even things like hobbies. All these things came from God anyway, right? He gave us those interests for a reason, even if we don’t see what the reason might be. I’ve heard your dad tell you that a hundred times.

“Don’t worry about the future. God’s grace comes to us only in the present moment. He manifests His will to us in that grace, minute by minute, in the people we meet and the situations that we find ourselves in. Help the lady in the aisle at the grocery store. Help your friends at school with their classes as much as you are able. Don’t be afraid to ask other people for help too. Forgive the jerk who flips you off in his impatience. We are channels of God’s grace to those around us too, and grace comes to us and flows all around in unpredictable ways and operates in us and all the people we bump into each day in ways we can never fully understand. Just let God do what He wants in us and it will all turn out all right. His love for us never lets up, and He’ll lead us where He knows we’ll be the happiest, even if it’s a hard road getting there. Even the bad things that happen to us—the things that seem bad to us—are from God. They help shape us, knock off the sharp corners and rough edges, smooth us into something better.

“I’m sorry, am I rambling too much or is any of this helping?”

Jim’s gaze was off in the distance, straight ahead. “Yeah. It helps. You’re pretty smart, for a Catholic I mean.”

They walked for about a minute more in silence until Jim said, “So. What do you think I ought to do?”

“Hoo-Boy!” Charlie rolled his eyes, a slight smirk on his lined face, as if he and the younger man shared a private joke.

“Well, if I were you,” he continued, “I’d take that pretty little lady of yours out to lunch or something real soon and, as casually as possible, tell her what’s up. Then let her tell you what she thinks. She might just have a few interesting ideas for you herself, things maybe you hadn’t thought of yourself. Life is full of surprises… Look, Jimmy, if God wants you to go to Peru, you’ll go to Peru, trust me. He’ll let you know in no uncertain terms. But if He doesn’t, if He’s got other plans for you, He’ll let you know that too. But all in His own time. You know that old poster-platitude that goes: ‘Yesterday is but a memory; and Tomorrow is but a dream. But Today is a gift. That’s why it’s called the Present’?

“Yeah,” said Jim, turning his head to smile at his friend. “It’s hanging on my dorm room wall.”

“Well it’s true. The present moment is all we’ve got, really. We can’t control either the past or the future, only what we’re doing right now. Dealing with the little things God sends us each minute we’re alive. That’s where God’s will is.”