A Matter of Will

“Who’s Will?” some will ask.  If it were the school sports day, and Will had just won the sack race, we might hear a proud mum shout, “It’s my Will!”  But no, that’s the wrong question.  It’s actually, “Whose will?”

When it comes to living life here on earth, we often think that the ‘the will of the people’ should be paramount.  However, different people want different things and, quite apart from any difficulty in determining ‘the will of the people’, there will inevitably be a sizeable minority who are disappointed with the outcome.  If this minority includes a very outspoken or physically expressive component, public outcry might result, leading in extreme cases to violence.

So it would be good to have a higher power, one with the authority to overrule such disagreements about the best way to live.  What better power than God’s will?  We don’t call Him God Almighty for nothing, after all!  But there’s a snag.

I confess that I was sometimes not a nice child.  With no siblings to compete with, I was used to having everything my way and, faced with any parental objection, I would make a fuss and, as I grew up, arguments followed.  Thus, I didn’t have an easy relationship with my father, but since his death almost thirty years ago, I’ve come to respect him and understand his point of view. 

One expression dad often used to end such confrontations was, “Have it your way; you’ll live the longer!”  He could see that it was better to maintain some kind of relationship than to win the argument.  It may not have been his intention, but he was following divine example here.  Instead of imposing His will upon us, God gives us free will.  We can decide how to live our lives, and we have to discover for ourselves that the best way is God’s way, i.e. to follow God’s will. 

This is one of many lines of thought that have focussed my reading in the early chapters of Mark’s Gospel recently; Mark 1:40-41 may be helpful here.  The leper appealed to Jesus’ will, and we’re told that, in response, He was ‘moved with compassion’.  One writer has suggested that the original word here indicates a close and powerful emotion such as between a nursing mother and her baby.  If so, it certainly emphasises the nature of God’s love for us, and how intently He wants the best for us.

The mother in my sports day illustration at the beginning of this piece might have said, ‘my Bill’; let’s play on that pun a bit more.  Imagine you’re out for a meal with friends; at the end of the evening, there’s an exchange about who’s going to pay the bill.  Think how proud you would be if you were to say ‘I’ll pay’ ... and they let you.  That’s how much God loves us.  It’s His will to pay the bill ... in fact, He has already done so, with Jesus’ life on the Cross!