God's Will?

The anonymous writer of The Cloud of Unknowing says:

“Silence is not God, nor speaking; fasting is not God, nor feasting; solitude is not God, nor company….God lies hidden between them and no work of yours can possibly discover God save only your heart’s love.  Reason cannot fully know God for God cannot be thought, possessed or discovered by the mind.  But loved God may be, and chosen by the affectionate longing of your heart.  Choose God, then, and you will find that your speech is become silent, your silence eloquent, your fast a feast, your feasting a fast, and so on.  Choose God in love….For this blind thrust, this deep shaft of longing love will never miss the mark, God himself.”

Love is at the heart of all things.  In the midst of the Beirut and Paris tragedies, it is difficult to see this Love at the heart of all things, but I am convinced that Love is there and here and everywhere seeking us, calling out to us, crying out to us, to take upon ourselves God’s own nature—to love as God loves.

Hawaii

Would anyone dare say that the events of Beirut and Paris were a part of God’s will?  If Love is at the heart of all things, then such a statement would be ridiculous.  The fact seems to be that God’s will is not always done in this world.  I have no doubt that God has a will for my life, but I also know that I have frustrated that “will” many, many times.  We were created really free—free to choose how we will live and how we will act.  We are free to frustrate God’s will and that is precisely what happened in Beirut and Paris.  And God weeps with us and mourns with us in the midst of it.