Will

Sometimes I act as if God's will is exclusively about action. (It is God's will for me to: go here, do this, be that, marry her, bomb them.) Lately I have been learning that sometimes it seems to be about inaction as much as it is about action. Kind of like how a song is as much about the spaces between the notes as the notes themselves.

I can think of many examples, but one stands with prominence in my mind. Yesterday I was driving to church with one of my best friends, and we drove past a nasty road kill. It was the nastiest one I have ever seen. There was a huge, mutilated deer in the road with a one hundred yard trail of blood and guts leading up to it. It was fresh. My friend, who is squeamish, nearly threw up. On the way home I had forgotten about the deer and happened to see it before my friend did. As we approached it, I pointed out his window, towards the sky, and in an excited voice told him to "Look at that!" We passed the deer, and he turned to me disappointed because his eyes were not able to locate the object of my excitement. He also didn't see the deer.

It only makes since to me that God the father would protect us. This must mean that sometimes he has to distract us from what is going to make us "sick." I am guilty of looking for meaning in everything I see, so this kind of sucks for me sometimes. I get sent somewhere and am constantly looking for my purpose there.

What if my purpose for being here is not being there?
I don't want to meet and fall in love with my wife yet. I'm not ready for that.

I won't ever understand God's will. I won't ever understand some of the things he leads me to do or to not do. But that's why it's God's will and not mine. I take comfort in the fact that his plan is bigger than my understanding. The best I can do is to trust that he has a pretty good reason for pointing out the window. I trust him enough to daily ask him to do the pointing.