Leslie Weatherhead wrote a book called The Will of God that I read when I was young, and it saved me. Not spiritually saved, but intellectually—it gave me a framework for holding all the ways my life didn’t look like what I thought God wanted.
Weatherhead was a preacher who lived through two world wars and the Depression, all the things that make you question what God’s doing. And he came up with three ways to think about God’s will.
There’s the intentional will of God—what God actually wants for us. What God designs for us. In the creation story, God wants order and goodness and beauty. God’s intention is that none be lost. When Jesus came, God’s intention was for us to follow him, to understand God, to become the kind of people who love the way God loves.
But we have free will. And we don’t usually do what God intends. We rebel. We choose ourselves. We want what we want and we’re willing to make a mess to get it.
So here’s the second one: the circumstantial will of God. Given the mess we’ve made—given that we’ve rejected God’s intention—what does God do? Does God just give up? No. God looks at the situation we’ve created and asks, now what? What can I do in these circumstances to move things toward good?
Here’s the hard part: Jesus’s death wasn’t God’s intention. God’s intention was for Jesus to be followed, to teach us how to live. But we wouldn’t do that. So God said, okay, what can I do with this rejection? How can I redeem this death? And the answer was resurrection. God took our rebellion, took our evil, took our worst act, and turned it into salvation.
That’s the circumstantial will of God. Not God causing the bad thing, but God refusing to let the bad thing have the last word.
And then there’s the providential will—the long view. The way God weaves everything together over time. We don’t see that one clearly until we look back. All those things that seemed like disasters, all those detours—they were working toward something. You can’t see it while you’re in it. But you see it later.
Most of us live our whole lives asking why things happen. Why did my marriage end. Why did I lose the job. Why is my child struggling. And those are real questions. But the answer isn’t always clear, and sometimes there is no good answer. Some things are just evil. Some things are just human stupidity.
What helps is understanding that God’s working on multiple levels at once. Trying to move us toward the intention while working within the circumstances we’ve created. And trusting that the long view, the providential will, is carrying us somewhere that will make sense.
Not because everything works out. But because God doesn’t let anything be wasted. Even our rebellion. Even our pain. God’s always looking for the next move toward good.
A reflection by Rev. MaryGean Cope