God's Will and Obedience
- Jul 14
- 4 min read
“Our spiritual goal is to align our life, our hearts and minds, and our wills with the will of God. We are endeavoring to have Christ be the Lord of our hearts and minds so that all of our actions, thoughts and feelings are unified and coincide with His. We want it to be that Christ can look at us, as He did Nathaniel, and measure our hearts with the words that here is a person “in whom there is no guile” (John 1:47)” (Fr. Ted Bobosh)
“I find that the more I surrender to God’s will over my life, the more I see His hand move over me. The more I find that the doors that are not meant for me close and the doors that are meant for me open. The right doors opening, and the right doors closing is part of my daily prayer…I have heard it said more than once that God answers prayer three ways: “Yes,” “no” and “not now.” Yet that assumes that prayer is always petition, that we desire a very particular outcome to our request. That is not how I pray. I pray for God’s will to be done. For His hand to move upon my life. It is not a request for a specific solution to a problem, rather a surrendering to wisdom beyond what I could possibly fathom.” (Jackie Morfesis)
“Do not pray for the fulfillment of your wishes, for they may not accord with the will of God. But pray as you have been taught, saying: Thy will be done in me (cf. Luke 22: 42). Always entreat Him in this way – that His will be done. For He desires what is good and profitable for you, whereas you do not always ask for this…What is good, except God? Then let us leave to Him everything that concerns us and all will be well. For He who is good is naturally also a giver of good gifts…Often when I have prayed I have asked for what I thought was good, and persisted in my petition, stupidly importuning the will of God, and not leaving it to Him to arrange things as He knows is best for me. But when I have obtained what I asked for, I have been very sorry that I did not ask for the will of God to be done; because the thing turned out not to be as I had thought.” (Evagrios the Solitary)
“Rather than hardening ourselves, trying to become what we want to be, we must remain pliable, open, and responsive to the creative activity of God: we must learn “to relax in the hands of God, to let God be the creator.” (Fr. John Behr)
“We often start our conversations with “I think” or “I believe” or “I feel” or “I want”. It is not to say that you are not important. You are very important. What you desire and want and feel and believe are important. But is God’s desire for your life not infinitely more important? You might desire things that are destructive or sinful, yet God loves you so much that He desires only good things for you. Brothers and sisters, this is God’s desire. To provide for us, to nurture us, to feed us, to grant us true fulfillment. He is able, if we are willing. He wants to give us life. He wants to redeem our lives from corruption and falsehood. He wants us to know and live within the truth of His teaching. He wants us to inherit His life, to be where He is and where the saints are. So let us be with Christ, in the Church, in our prayers, in love for our neighbors. This is our small offering, may God receive it and multiply it!” (Fr. James Guirguis)
“Only an obedient heart can truly pray, for the end of prayer is not speaking to God, but hearing and heeding what He is saying back to us…It is in obedience that we find the means of destroying the ego, which separates us from Christ...obedience is our way of surrendering to the will of Christ…Following Christ means total submission to Him…” (Archimandrite Vassilios Papavassiliou, Abbot Tryphon, Life Application Bible, Luke 14:27)
“God responds to His obedient children…When we act this life, let it be in God’s will – and let us always take into account and have respect for the needs of others, so that the Lord may bless us.” (Life Application Study Bible, Hebrews 5:5-7, Dynamis 3/27/2018)
“We must unreservedly surrender ourselves to God’s providence, to the divine will, and God will take care of us.” (Elder Paisios of Mount Athos)
“This combination of waiting, watching, and testing is essential to discerning God’s will fully, for the enemy constantly sows both good and evil thoughts to distract us from God’s highest and best. May we always wait for God, for He alone teaches us and leads us to the truth (Ps 24:5).” (Dynamis 3/9/2018)
“God’s will is our sanctification (1 Thessalonians 4:3), our being set apart to the Lord as His special possession. We are being sanctified as we walk with Him in faith and obedience.” (Orthodox Study Bible, 1 Thessalonians 4:1-12)
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