God’s will is loving thought. Isn’t it?

A few evenings ago I was in a wonderful meeting and among other things, we discussed God’s will.  I can still remember with such clarity how troubled I was with this idea when I first heard others discussing it in my early days of recovery.  Like so many people before me, I feared God’s will might be for me to sell every thing I owned and move to an ashram or at least to some other part of the world to do I knew not what.  I simply couldn’t imagine following any one else’s plan for me, regardless if it was God’s or not.

Every day, I think for years, I tried “to listen” to discern what I needed to do, but I never got a clear sense of what God’s will was.  I heard no words.  I did get an occasional feeling but nothing was absolute.  I just kept moving forward, hoping I wasn’t too far off track.  Because my life had changed pretty significantly as the result of getting into 12 step recovery, I wasn’t in danger of doing many of the things that had been so common to my journey previously.  Thus I wasn’t in danger of angering God at least.

And then I met an individual who had a very interesting perspective on God’s will.  He had been a “student” of another spiritual pathway for many years, one that I was very attracted to as well, and he explained that he thought God’s will could be defined as loving thought.  He explained it this way:  God is Love; Will is Thought; therefore, God’s will is loving thought.  It made sense to me.  It was refreshing and certainly simplified my life.  I suddenly felt like I didn’t have to wring my hands, day in and day out wondering what it was that God wanted me to do.  If I was loving toward my companions, friends and stranger alike, I would be fulfilling God’s will.

My life has felt far different ever since that moment of clarification.  No longer do I stew over what I need to do.  I can keep my decisions simple.  Just do the next right, and kind thing.  God will nudge me forward.  Peace is the promise.

Do you struggle wondering what God’s will is?  Perhaps you might try to follow what my friend told me.  It feels good, quiet and right.  Let me know your thoughts.