“If therefore thine eye be single, thy whole body shall be full of light” (Matt. 6:2222The light of the body is the eye: if therefore thine eye be single, thy whole body shall be full of light. (Matthew 6:22)). People would like a convenient and comfortable means of knowing God’s will, as one might get a receipt for anything, but there exists no means of ascertaining it without reference to the state of our own soul.
Moreover, we are often of too much importance in our own eyes, and we deceive ourselves in supposing some will of God in such or such a case. God perhaps has nothing to tell us thereon, the evil being altogether in the stir we give ourselves. The will of God is perhaps that we should take quietly an insignificant place.
Further, we sometimes seek God’s will, desiring to know how to act in circumstances in which it is not His will that we should be found at all.
Be assured that if we are near enough to God, we shall have no trouble to know His will. In a long and active life it may often happen that God, in His love, may not always at once reveal His will to us, that we may feel our dependence, particularly where the individual has a tendency to act according to his own will.
It is then the will of God, and a precious will, that we should be able to discern it only according to our own spiritual state. In general, when we think we are judging circumstances, it is God who is judging us — who is judging our state. Our business is to keep close to Him. God would not be good to us, if He permitted us to discover His will without that. It might be convenient just to have a director of consciences, and we should be thus spared the discovery and chastisement of our moral condition. Thus, if you seek how you may discover the will of God without that, you are seeking evil. It is what we see every day.
One Christian is in doubt, in perplexity; another, more spiritual, sees as clear as the day, and he is surprised, sees no difficulty, and ends by understanding that it lies only in the other’s state of soul.
J. N. Darby