I think it’s to see His children succeed; to see us learn and grow and progress and eventually become like Him. He wants us to be happy. Not short term, momentary, fleeting fun happy – but eternal, all encompassing, essence of our being, happy.
There is only one way that can happen: free will.
We have to be able to choose. Everything. We have to be able to make right and wrong
choices, we have to be able to save a life, and also take a life. We have to be able to love and hate, help and
hurt, give and take. We have to be free
to make every single mistake, every wrong choice, because that is the only way
we’ll ever learn to make the right choice.
God is all powerful, all knowing. He can make anything happen at anytime. He understands, perfectly, every law of physics, every reaction of chemistry - he can do anything, for he understands everything, and has all power.
So why doesn't he stop the rapists, the murderers, the kidnappers, the thieves, the drunk drivers, the suicidal friends?
Why doesn't he STOP bad things from happening?
Because our eternal happiness is far too important. We MUST have free-will. We MUST have agency. Without that - there really is no point, no purpose, no progression, no happiness.
God answers prayers. He can make a flood or a famine. He can call a prophet and send down scripture. God does a million other things to help us, persuade us, guide us, and teach us. He chooses NOT to control us.
For God's will to happen in our lives, we have to CHOOSE to do His will.
Christ was the perfect example of this. He is the only person that chose, his entire life, to do God's will, in every single decision.
Christ's life was perfect because he used his agency not to do his will, but the Fathers. This did not keep everyone else from choosing their own will. Others still chose to hate him, and revile him, and arrest him, and beat him, and eventually kill him. Christ chose to do the Father's will, and let those men kill him. Christ had his agency, and willingly gave it to God.
Now there's us. In our lives you can look at it both ways, and both are correct.
1. Everything that happens is God's will. (True, because His will is that we choose)
2. Nothing that happens is God's will. (True, because it is all our will, which is exactly how He wants it.)
God is all powerful, all knowing. He can make anything happen at anytime. He understands, perfectly, every law of physics, every reaction of chemistry - he can do anything, for he understands everything, and has all power.
So why doesn't he stop the rapists, the murderers, the kidnappers, the thieves, the drunk drivers, the suicidal friends?
Why doesn't he STOP bad things from happening?
Because our eternal happiness is far too important. We MUST have free-will. We MUST have agency. Without that - there really is no point, no purpose, no progression, no happiness.
God answers prayers. He can make a flood or a famine. He can call a prophet and send down scripture. God does a million other things to help us, persuade us, guide us, and teach us. He chooses NOT to control us.
For God's will to happen in our lives, we have to CHOOSE to do His will.
Christ was the perfect example of this. He is the only person that chose, his entire life, to do God's will, in every single decision.
Christ's life was perfect because he used his agency not to do his will, but the Fathers. This did not keep everyone else from choosing their own will. Others still chose to hate him, and revile him, and arrest him, and beat him, and eventually kill him. Christ chose to do the Father's will, and let those men kill him. Christ had his agency, and willingly gave it to God.
Now there's us. In our lives you can look at it both ways, and both are correct.
1. Everything that happens is God's will. (True, because His will is that we choose)
2. Nothing that happens is God's will. (True, because it is all our will, which is exactly how He wants it.)
5 comments:
I was having hard time deciding if you were being serious or trolling the internet.
I think your serious. You've made a miscalculation. While I believe there are a plethora of unpleasant things that happen in the world outside of "God's will" or his desire for happy children, to say nothing nothing here is God's will is to deny events outside of man's control.
Noah's flood was not a removal of a protection, but an intentional wiping out of the antediluvian corruption.
Israel leaving Egypt may have been executed by the will of righteous but it was initiated by God and therefore was his will.
At Christ's final mortal moments, the earth rent in the Americas. That was definitely outside the collective will of anyone living there and definitely advanced God's will in the new world.
We're here to decide everything. That is true. We're ALSO here to be tested in varying circumstances to define our desires and prove (to ourselves) if were willing to do all that he asks. In order for it to be an appropriate test things must happen outside of man's control.
I just changed the text of the post to clarify what I was thinking.
I wasn't speaking about events not involving agency - like the flood.
I was speaking of everything done by humans - That God did not decide to make a person rob a house, or kill someone. God did not start a war.
People did that and God let it happen. When someone prays and uses their will to ask for His help, He will.
When we decide to obey his will, the blessings follow.
When someone uses their will for years and years to be his disciple, to be allowed to hold the Priesthood and use God's power, then miracles happen, because it is man's will matching God's will.
Perfect happiness would happen when everyone used their will to do God's will, because his will is perfect happiness.
Am I making sense or just being more confusing?
The blog message is still a little unclear, but your comment provides the missing context.
I agree. All things that happen by the hand of man are both known and part of God's long game.
All right - NOW hopefully I've made my last revision.
The word "will", as used here, still carries the flavors of its Germanic root, "wollen.". It means both desire and decision.
God's -desire- is that we all grow to be like Him through our obedience to His commandments. This aspect of God's Will does not always come to pass.
His -decision- is to allow us our own ability to choose. That part of His Will always comes to pass.*
*Disclaimer: We may choose to give up our freedom of choice to another, but God will never take it from us. That's a whole nother topic.
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