God's WIll and Our Creative Desires

An outtake from a writing project.... I’ve a favorite book by Robert Corin Morris, Wrestling with Grace: A Spirituality for the Rough Edges of Daily Life (Upper Room Books, 2003). Morris writes, “Many years ago I faced a vague but persistent unhappiness in parish ministry. Why was I so recurrently dissatisfied with a job that was, in so many ways, rewarding? Did this restlessness mean I should leave the ministry? What did I really want?” (p. 204). He went through a process of talking to people and clarifying his skills. Finally he prayed to God, “What do you want me to do?” and he felt the answer in his mind, “What do you want to do?” His answer to himself was that he’d like to teach, and this lead him to establishing an interreligious learning center, and he has focused his ministry in teaching ever since (p. 205).

Morris writes, “Conventional teaching leads us to believe that ‘thy will be done’ means our desire won’t be honored. Sometimes that is the case, especially when our will is still captive to the more superficial cravings and fears of our nature. But it is God’s pleasure to delight in our desires for the good. Major decisions in the early church were taken because it ‘seemed good to the Holy Spirit and to us’ (Acts 15:28, italics added). ‘Thy will be done,’ quite precisely, includes learning to honor our deepest and most creative desires and finding joy in offering them to be part of God’s work in the world” (p. 205).

I wonder if many of us hesitate to seek God’s will, because we think it will be unpleasant and difficult, necessarily contrary to our desires and preferences. We can take a cue from Psalm 37:4 and remember that God is loving and "delightful"--not a “meanie” who shames or forces us to seek his will:

Take delight in the LORD,

and he will give you the desires of your heart.