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HIGHER WAYS (10)

by Christopher Harbin

Scripture: Isaiah 55:1-9
This content is part of a series.


Higher Ways (10)
Lectionary, Year C, Lent 3
Christopher B. Harbin
Isaiah 55:1-9


What is God’s will? It’s a question I have heard more times than I care to remember. I have heard it applied to career choices, to suffering, to choosing a spouse, to educational opportunities, to places to live, and all sorts of other issues. I have heard churches reference the question regarding different aspects of a church’s life, finances, programs, and plans. How do we determine God’s will? On one level, it gets complicated, yet on another it is a simple issue. If we would truly follow God’s will, we would look at God’s purposes and attach our choices and decisions to those priorities. Are we willing to seek after God’s higher ways rather than our own?

In conversation with a recent graduate looking at major decisions ahead of them, I had to remind them that God’s will was much more basic and deeper than answering specific questions such as the school they chose to attend, the career path they selected, or which individual they chose to marry. God’s real concern was with issues of their character and how they might use those other choices to make the world a better place in which God’s heavenly reign might become more visible here on earth. That may not be the traditional way we approach God’s will, but I find it more wholesome that so much of what passes for discerning God’s will in our context.

We come to the issue of God’s will immersed in Greek notions of the three Fates. These entities sat around arbitrarily deciding the minor specifics of individual lives, ruling out any sense of free will. They determined things from which color of M&M we ate first and the word order in my sermon. As a consequence, they ruled the larger picture issues of human life like nations going to war, who survives a grenade attack, and who comes down with cancer. That is not the character of God presented by Jesus. It is not the character of God shining through the Hebrew Scriptures. Yah ...

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