How I Relate To God's Will

In Sunday School we were talking about how we related to God's will. The teacher spoke about dealing with the will of God on three levels. The first was acceptance, the second was surrender and the third was contentment. I thought about my relationship to the will of God. I think in pictures so this was what I saw. When I recognized God's will I accepted it like an assignment.

I saw acceptance like a high ladder that I was to climb. Once I had climbed the ladder I was on the high dive. Surrender meant walking to the edge of the plank and looking down into a small pool of water and then diving headlong into it. But that was as far as I could go with my mental picture. I could not see contentment, I tried but I couldn't. The reason I couldn't see a mental picture of contentment was because I wasn't experiencing it. I felt like I was accepting and surrendering to God's will but I wasn't content.

One thing I learned long ago was that when I don't have the answers to my questions I need to ask. So I began asking God in prayer to show me how to be content with His will. My lack of contentment made me so miserable that I also began seeking the answer. When my children were little and I would be in my room and they needed me they would knock persistently on my bedroom door because they knew I would  respond to their need. In this same way I was asking, seeking, and knocking because I knew my Heavenly Father had the answer and would give it to me. What does it look like to be content with the will of God?

This is the understanding I have come to about the will of God. Before accepting, or surrendering, or finding contentment in His will I need to identify it. I believe that the will of God and the love of God are inseparable. “I have loved you with an everlasting love; I have drawn you with loving-kindness.” Jeremiah 31:1 My first picture of dealing with God's will looked more like a slave obeying orders. When I began to see His will as His love the picture changed to that of a bride receiving the love of her groom.

Lord Jesus, I want to accept Your love and believe the words of love I find in Your word. I want to surrender to Your love as a bride surrenders to her beloved. I want to find all my contentment and my identity in Your love for me. “The LORD will fulfill his purpose for me; your love, O LORD, endures forever...” Psalm 138:8