This article shows that God’s will is not sought first through signs, impulses, or private feelings, but through Scripture, Tradition, spiritual guidance, and the fulfilment of known commandments.
I. Introduction
The question "what is God’s will for me?" is not a speculative one, reserved for theologians or for those advanced in the spiritual life. It is the most practical question of Christian living — the question every Christian should ask in the face of every significant choice and every circumstance life brings. Our salvation hinges on the answer to this question, for salvation is nothing other than the fulfilment of God’s will in our lives, according to the measure of each.
Our Saviour Himself placed this question at the centre of human life when He taught His disciples to pray: "Thy will be done, on earth as it is in heaven" (Matthew 6:10). And of Himself He said: "I seek not Mine own will, but the will of the Father which hath sent Me" (John 5:30). This is the measure. All that authentic Christian life means is, at its root, the fulfilment of God’s will — not our own, not the world’s, not the enemy’s.
Yet here the difficulty begins. How do we find God’s will in a particular situation? How do we distinguish it from our own desires, our own reasonings, the suggestions we receive from without and within? How do we distinguish it from the voice of passion speaking in pious tones? How do we recognise when God speaks through circumstances and when we are merely interpreting subjectively what happens to us?
These questions are not new. The Holy Fathers asked them and answered them, leaving us a clear teaching tested by two thousand years of Orthodox life. Their answer does not match the expectations of modern man, who seeks instant illumination, an unambiguous sign, an immediate inner peace. The patristic answer is otherwise: God’s will is known through Holy Scripture, through the Tradition of the Church, through spiritual guidance, and through the right reading of circumstances — and, above all, it is known through its fulfilment. "If any man will do His will, he shall know of the doctrine" (John 7:17). Knowledge comes after obedience, not before it.
The present article seeks to gather the teaching of the Holy Fathers on the finding of God’s will, to show how the Saints fulfilled it in their lives, and to draw attention to the snares into which those who seek this will according to their own mind inevitably fall.
II. What God’s Will Is
Before asking how we find God’s will, we must understand what this expression means. The Holy Fathers never use the notion "God’s will" in a vague or psychologising sense. They have left us precise distinctions, without which discernment remains impossible.
Antecedent Will and Consequent Will
St John of Damascus, in his Exact Exposition of the Orthodox Faith (Book II, chapter 29, On Providence), sets forth the clearest distinction between the two ways in which we speak of God’s will — a distinction he inherits from the entire Eastern tradition before him, through St Nemesius of Emesa, and which he passes on as a foundation to all who would write after him.
The antecedent will is that by which God wills first, out of His goodness, that all should be saved. St John of Damascus also calls it good pleasure (eudokia). Its cause is in God Himself, not in us: it is God’s will as it stands before and independently of what man freely chooses.
The consequent will is that which follows upon, and as response to, man’s free will. St John of Damascus also calls it abandonment (or permission). Its cause is not in God, but in us: it is the way God positions Himself toward us after we have positioned ourselves in one way or another toward Him.
The consequent will is itself of two kinds: one is salvific and instructive, leading toward correction; the other is permissive unto complete chastisement for those who persist. The instructive abandonment is that by which God permits the righteous man to suffer (as was the case with Job), or the pious man to fall into a trial lest he be exalted (as Paul was with the thorn in the flesh), or even allows someone to fall into a sin so that, recognising his own weakness, he might be healed of a graver passion such as pride. These are all forms of the consequent will, through permission.
This distinction is the foundation of any correct understanding of God’s will. Holy Scripture clearly attests the antecedent will: "God will have all men to be saved, and to come unto the knowledge of the truth" (1 Timothy 2:4). And further: "This is the will of God, even your sanctification" (1 Thessalonians 4:3); and "In every thing give thanks: for this is the will of God in Christ Jesus concerning you" (1 Thessalonians 5:18). God’s antecedent will, His good pleasure, is this: the sanctification of man, thanksgiving in all things, a life according to the commandments, the salvation of all.
To confuse the antecedent will with the consequent will, or to call "God’s will" everything that happens in the world, is to make God the author of evil — which is blasphemy. St Basil the Great wrote a whole homily against this confusion — That God Is Not the Author of Evil (Homily IX) — for in his own day, in the time of a great drought and famine that struck Caesarea, some people piously but wrongly said that this was "God’s will" in an absolute sense. The teaching of that homily is that evil has no being of its own, does not come from God, but is a privation of the good and a consequence of the misuse of free will; and the misfortunes of the city — drought, famine, or sickness — must not be ascribed to God as their cause.
Why This Distinction Matters
Without an understanding of the two kinds of will — antecedent and consequent, good pleasure and abandonment — we inevitably fall into one of two extremes.
The first extreme is fatalism: "Everything is God’s will, therefore it must simply be accepted." This is a grave error. The sins of others against me are not God’s antecedent will. Injustice in the world is not God’s antecedent will. Sicknesses and sufferings are not in themselves the antecedent will, but belong to the consequent will — they are permitted, and God uses them for the correction and salvation of man. To say "this is God’s will" of everything that happens, without this distinction, is to confuse the patristic categories.
The second extreme is voluntarism: "I decide what I want to do, and then I seek a blessing." Here one falls into the illusion that we can know God’s will simply through our own desire, as if God automatically ratifies what we have already decided. This attitude is very widespread today, especially in circles where "following your heart" or "trusting your feelings" presents itself as a spiritual criterion.
The patristic teaching is therefore clear: God’s will has precise meanings, and discernment begins with refusing to confuse them. What God wills antecedently, out of good pleasure, is our sanctification through the fulfilment of His commandments. What God permits consequently, through abandonment unto correction, are the trials by which man is brought back to His first will. And all things, through His providence, are turned toward the salvation of him who loves God: "And we know that all things work together for good to them that love God" (Romans 8:28).
III. The Three Ways of Finding God’s Will
In patristic tradition there is a constant teaching about the ways by which man knows God’s will in a particular situation. St Ignatius Brianchaninov formulates them with the greatest clarity in his ascetic writings, but the same teaching is found in St Theophan the Recluse, in St John Climacus, in Sts Barsanuphius and John of Gaza, and — in the Romanian tradition — in Elder Cleopa Ilie.
These ways are three: Holy Scripture and the Tradition of the Church, spiritual guidance, and the circumstances appointed by God. These are not three parallel paths, each equally good, but a hierarchy. The first is the foundation; the second rests upon the first; the third is read in the light of the first two.
1. Holy Scripture and the Tradition of the Church
This is the principal way, foundational, and in most cases sufficient. The greater part of God’s will for any Christian is not hidden, not a mystery, not something to be guessed. It is revealed in Holy Scripture, in the holy canons, in the unanimous teaching of the Holy Fathers, and in the liturgical life of the Church.
The constant patristic teaching is this: before asking "what is God’s will for me in this situation?", the Christian must first ask "what does Scripture and Tradition say about this kind of situation?" In the vast majority of cases, the answer is already given.
Must I lie to protect my interest? The answer is in the ninth commandment. Must I take revenge for a wrong I have suffered? The answer is in the Sermon on the Mount: "Love your enemies, bless them that curse you" (Matthew 5:44). Must I continue an illicit relationship? The answer is in the seventh commandment. Must I honour my parents even when they hurt me? The answer is in the fifth commandment. Must I fast on Wednesdays and Fridays? The answer is in the holy canons. Must I go to Confession before Holy Communion? The answer is in the liturgical Tradition of the Church.
In all these cases — and they are countless — "finding God’s will" is not a problem of subtle discernment, but of obedience to a commandment. St Basil the Great shows in his Long Rules that the keeping of the commandments is the very content of God’s will for him who wishes to be saved — the life pleasing to God is the life which keeps His commandments unto His glory.
This is the most important lesson, and the one which modern man most often refuses to receive. God’s will is usually not some deep mystery, but a known commandment that we do not wish to fulfil.
2. Spiritual Guidance
The second way is the guidance of one who bears in the Church the gift of discernment — the spiritual father, the spiritual guide, the bishop, or the priest. This way is thoroughly treated in the article Whom Should We Obey? and we shall not return to it at length here. We retain only the principle:
Spiritual guidance does not replace Scripture and Tradition, but applies them to particular situations. When the commandment is clear, no guidance is needed to know it — what is needed is the resolve to fulfil it. Guidance becomes necessary when a situation calls for the application of a commandment in complex circumstances, or when someone’s path needs a particular word from a tested father.
St John Climacus draws attention, in the chapter On Obedience in The Ladder, to the opposite danger: that of the disciple who goes to his guide not to find God’s will but to confirm a decision already made. He does not seek the truth; he seeks approval. And if the guide’s answer does not match his decision, he either leaves displeased or goes to another guide until he finds one who will tell him what he wants to hear. This is not the finding of God’s will, but the seeking of a "blessing" for one’s own.
3. The Circumstances Appointed by God
The third way — and here the greatest care is needed, for this is also the most deceptive when used alone — is the reading of the circumstances which God appoints or permits in our lives.
The patristic teaching about the working of divine providence in daily circumstances is this: the place in which God has set you now — the duty that is yours, the person beside you, the trouble that finds you, the matter that demands your attention — is the very place in which the fulfilment of His will is asked of you. Not somewhere else, but here. Not at some other time, but now. This teaching is found in all the ascetic Fathers who have written on patience and thanksgiving, and rests on the word of the Apostle Paul: "All things work together for good to them that love God" (Romans 8:28).
Circumstances, then, are the place in which God’s will is fulfilled. The sick man’s task is to receive his sickness with thanksgiving; the man in distress, to endure his trouble with hope; the man surrounded by difficult people, to be saved through bearing with them and forgiving them. In this sense, every circumstance is a calling.
But — and this is the heart of the matter — circumstances do not interpret themselves. In the Romanian spiritual tradition, Elder Cleopa Ilie repeatedly warned of the danger of those who seek "signs" and "particular revelations" in every event, turning the Christian life into an endless search for private miracles. His consistent teaching was that God does not speak to ordinary men through private revelations, but through Holy Scripture, through the holy canons, and through the Tradition of the Church.
The difference between the Christian reception of circumstances and the seeking of "signs" is this: the Christian does not interpret a circumstance as a particular revelation, but receives it as the place where obedience to the commandment is asked of him. The sick man must not ask "why has God given me this sickness?" as if the answer were some personal message; he must ask "how should I bear myself in this sickness so as to fulfil God’s will?" — and the answer is found in Scripture and the Fathers: with patience, with thanksgiving, with prayer, with confession, with the receiving of the Holy Mysteries.
St Theophan the Recluse, in his spiritual responses to those in suffering, gives precisely this disposition. Of sickness — the heaviest of circumstances for most people — he writes: "Sickness is the work of God’s wisdom." And further: "Sickness teaches us to be humble and obedient to God’s will." (These responses were gathered in the volume Illness and Death — Explanations, Counsels, Consolations, Sophia Press, Bucharest, 2007.) For those who seek wider guidance on doing God’s will in daily life, St Theophan also left the volume How to Live According to God’s Will (translated into Romanian by Egumeniţa Press).
The same disposition is found, closer to us in time, in St Silouan the Athonite (†1938), in Between the Hell of Despair and the Hell of Humility (Deisis edition, Sibiu — the English text is available in St Silouan the Athonite by Archimandrite Sophrony Sakharov). St Silouan describes the soul that has surrendered to God’s will in this way: "it fears nothing — neither storm nor thieves, nothing." And of sickness, he gives this simple measure: "If he is sick, he thinks: ‘I must need this sickness, or God would not have sent it.’" This is not fatalism — it is surrender. The peace of the soul in the midst of a circumstance does not come from understanding it, but from trusting in Him who permits it.
The Hierarchy of the Three Ways
These three ways are not equal, and their order matters. Scripture and Tradition are the unshakable foundation. Spiritual guidance is the light applied to the particular case. Circumstances are the place where God’s will is fulfilled, not the source through which it is revealed — except very rarely, and under the control of the first two.
He who inverts this order — who builds his life on "signs" and on the interpretation of circumstances, leaving Scripture and Tradition in second place — enters into the danger of prelest (spiritual delusion), which St Ignatius Brianchaninov described in the greatest detail in his work On the Prelest.
IV. How the Saints Fulfilled God’s Will
The Tradition of the Church is not merely a body of teaching; it is a body of lives in which this teaching has been embodied. How did the Saints find and fulfil God’s will? A few examples drawn from Scripture and from the lives of the Saints show that the finding of God’s will was, above all, fulfilment against one’s own will.
Abraham at the Sacrifice of Isaac
Abraham is called "the father of faith" precisely because he fulfilled God’s will against all human reasoning. "Take now thy son, thine only son Isaac, whom thou lovest, and get thee into the land of Moriah; and offer him there for a burnt offering" (Genesis 22:2). The command was clear. Abraham sought no signs, asked for no confirmation, interpreted no circumstances, sought no way around it. "And Abraham rose up early in the morning" (Genesis 22:3), and set out to do what had been commanded.
The Holy Fathers interpret this "early in the morning" as the sign of an obedience that no longer hesitates. The finding of God’s will, when the commandment is clear, must not be followed by delay. And the reward came precisely after the obedience had proved complete: "Now I know that thou fearest God" (Genesis 22:12). Knowledge — even on God’s side, in the economic sense — comes through fulfilment.
St Anthony the Great
St Athanasius the Great recounts, in The Life of Our Father Anthony, the decisive moment of St Anthony’s conversion: the young Anthony enters a church and hears the very Gospel word: "If thou wilt be perfect, go and sell that thou hast, and give to the poor, and thou shalt have treasure in heaven: and come and follow Me" (Matthew 19:21).
The word seemed addressed to him personally. He sought no additional sign, sought out no guide, interpreted no circumstances. God’s will had been revealed in the Gospel; he fulfilled it. This is the lesson: when the Gospel commandment strikes the heart at a moment when one is prepared, God’s will is not to be sought elsewhere.
St Maximus the Confessor
The case of St Maximus is of singular gravity. In the seventh century, when the Emperor, the Patriarch of Constantinople, and almost the entire Eastern hierarchy were on the side of the Monothelite heresy, a single monk — bearing no formal hierarchical authority — stood against them. Asked by the imperial envoys whether he would commune with the Church of Constantinople if she embraced the heresy, St Maximus answered — as the records of his trial (Acta Maximi, preserved in Patrologia Graeca, vol. 90) attest — that even if the whole universe were to commune with the Patriarch, he would not.
Here God’s will was not found through the number of those who held it, nor through the authority of those who preached it, but through conformity with the faith of the Holy Fathers who came before, transmitted in Tradition. St Maximus fulfilled God’s will against the entire visible world, and paid with his right hand cut off and his tongue cut out. And the Church received him as Confessor.
The lesson for us is this: God’s will is not found by majority, nor by anyone’s position in the hierarchy, but through Tradition. And this is a lesson that bears directly on our times.
St Mark of Ephesus at Florence
In 1439, at the Council of Ferrara-Florence, the entire Eastern delegation — the Emperor John VIII Palaeologus, Patriarch Joseph II, the bishops present — signed the union with Rome, under political pressure and in hope of military aid against the Turks. A single hierarch refused: St Mark Eugenicus, Metropolitan of Ephesus.
The historical chronicles of the Council — preserved especially through the testimony of Sylvester Syropoulos, Grand Ecclesiarch present at the Council — record that when Pope Eugene IV received the decree of union and saw that it lacked St Mark’s signature, he reckoned that, without that single signature, nothing had been accomplished.
St Mark did not seek "peace in his heart" to decide whether to sign. He did not ask whether he "felt" he should sign. He asked one thing only: what does the Tradition of the Church teach concerning the contested points? And when he saw that the text of the union contradicted the patristic teaching on the procession of the Holy Spirit, on unleavened bread, on purgatory, and on the papal primacy, he refused.
Here the finding of God’s will was made through faithfulness to the Fathers, not through accommodation to circumstances (however straitened those circumstances were). Constantinople fell fourteen years later, in 1453, without the union having saved it.
From the Lives of the Desert Fathers
Closer to ordinary life, the Sayings of the Desert Fathers — the collection of words and deeds of the Egyptian desert Fathers of the fourth and fifth centuries — show how the Holy Fathers fulfilled God’s will through the simplest obedience, through the cutting off of one’s own will in the smallest matter.
In the chapter dedicated to Abba John the Dwarf, the Sayings recount how the young John, as the disciple of an elder from the Thebaid, was given the obedience of watering a dry stick planted in the ground far from his cell, day by day. After three years, the stick brought forth shoots — a sign of an obedience that had prevailed over nature. The elder took the green branches, brought them to the church, and said to those present that this is the fruit of obedience.
This lesson, repeated in dozens of pateric sayings, shows that the fulfilment of God’s will does not first require great revelations, but steadfast obedience in small matters. He who cannot bury his own will in small things will not be able to fulfil God’s will in great ones.
Synthesis
What is common to these cases? In all of them, God’s will was not a psychological discovery ("I felt that God was telling me"), but a conformity with the commandments, with the Gospel, with Tradition, followed by unwavering obedience, often against nature, against the multitude, against one’s own interests. The Saints did not ask their hearts whether they "felt peace"; they asked their consciences whether they were in accord with God as revealed in His Church.
V. When People Have Known God’s Will and Not Fulfilled It
Equally instructive are the contrary cases: those who clearly knew God’s will and yet, in full knowledge, did their own. Scripture is full of such cases, and the Holy Fathers have commented on them precisely as warnings to us. For, according to the word of the Saviour: "That servant, which knew his lord’s will, and prepared not himself, neither did according to his will, shall be beaten with many stripes" (Luke 12:47).
To know God’s will and to transgress it is graver than not to know it.
Saul the King
In the First Book of Kings (chapter 15), the prophet Samuel tells Saul, on the Lord’s behalf, to destroy the Amalekites utterly, sparing nothing. The command was clear, transmitted through a prophet, without ambiguity. Saul fulfilled it by halves: he slew those considered of no account, but spared Agag the king of the Amalekites, and the best of the cattle, under the pretext of offering them in sacrifice.
When Samuel rebuked him, Saul tried to justify his disobedience with religious arguments: he wished, he said, to sacrifice to the Lord. Samuel’s answer has remained a foundational word for the whole Tradition:
"Hath the Lord as great delight in burnt offerings and sacrifices, as in obeying the voice of the Lord? Behold, to obey is better than sacrifice, and to hearken than the fat of rams" (1 Samuel 15:22).
Saul knew clearly what the Lord had commanded through the prophet. He nonetheless did his own will, masking it under the appearance of piety — and for this he lost the kingdom. The Fathers who have interpreted this passage — among them St Gregory the Great in his Pastoral Rule — draw attention to the fact that this kind of disobedience, disobedience clothed in religious garments, is the most dangerous, for it blinds him who commits it, making him believe that he is serving God precisely when he is doing his own will.
Jonah
The prophet Jonah receives a direct command from God: "Arise, go to Nineveh, that great city, and cry against it" (Jonah 1:2). Jonah knew exactly what God willed. There was no doubt. And yet: "But Jonah rose up to flee unto Tarshish from the presence of the Lord" (Jonah 1:3).
What is striking here is the motive. Jonah does not flee out of misunderstanding, but precisely because he understood too well what God willed. He knew that God is merciful and would forgive Nineveh if she repented — and Jonah did not want Nineveh to be forgiven. Jonah’s will was different from God’s will, and he chose to flee rather than to submit.
The Holy Fathers interpret the story of Jonah as a foreshadowing of the burial and resurrection of Christ, but also as a lesson about the futility of fleeing from the known will of God. The storm, the whale, the casting up on the shore — all these are the providence by which God brings Jonah back to His antecedent will, from which he had tried to escape.
The Rich Young Man
In the Gospel according to Matthew (chapter 19), a young man comes to the Saviour with a truly sincere question: "Good Master, what good thing shall I do, that I may have eternal life?" (Matthew 19:16). He is asking, then, to find God’s will. The Saviour first answers him with the commandments, and the young man says he has kept them from his youth. Then he receives the full answer:
"If thou wilt be perfect, go and sell that thou hast, and give to the poor, and thou shalt have treasure in heaven: and come and follow Me" (Matthew 19:21).
The answer was no mystery, no allusion, nothing he needed to interpret. It was the direct commandment of the Saviour. "But when the young man heard that saying, he went away sorrowful: for he had great possessions" (Matthew 19:22).
This is one of the most painful passages in the Gospel. The young man does not say "no," does not argue, does not deny the authority of the Saviour. He goes away sorrowful. That is: he knows this is God’s will, but he cannot do it, because he is bound to something else. This is the situation of many Christians today: not unbelievers, but bound. We know God’s will, but we go away sorrowful, because we have "great possessions" — money, passions, attachments, ambitions, relationships we cannot break.
The Holy Fathers, commenting on this passage, point out that it is not poverty in itself that is God’s will, but the freeing of the heart. The young man could not follow Christ because his heart was enslaved to his wealth. The knowledge of God’s will does not save unless it becomes fulfilment.
Judas
The gravest case. Judas was a chosen disciple, heard all the words of the Saviour, saw all the miracles, was sent out to preach and to heal. He knew the will of Christ. And at the Mystical Supper, the Saviour warned him directly, without exposing him before the others, giving him one last chance to turn back: "That thou doest, do quickly" (John 13:27).
Judas was no blind man. He was a betrayer with eyes wide open. The Fathers who have interpreted the Passion of the Saviour show that what destroyed Judas was not the sin of betrayal itself, but the unbelief in the forgiveness that would have received him had he repented. The Apostle Peter denied and wept bitterly; Judas betrayed and hanged himself. The difference is not in the gravity of the sin — both fell gravely — but in the turning toward repentance.
The lesson is this: the knowledge of God’s will, however deep, does not save alone. What saves is its fulfilment, and when we fall from fulfilment, the repentance that turns back.
Israel in the Wilderness
The whole history of the people of Israel in the wilderness, after the Exodus from Egypt, is a repeated falling of those who know God’s will and do their own. They saw the Red Sea parted, ate manna from heaven, drank water from the rock, heard the voice of the Lord on Sinai. And yet: the golden calf, the murmuring, the refusal to enter the Promised Land when commanded, the idolatry with Baal-Peor.
The Apostle Paul, in the First Epistle to the Corinthians, draws our attention: "Now these things were our examples, to the intent we should not lust after evil things, as they also lusted" (1 Corinthians 10:6). And further: "Wherefore let him that thinketh he standeth take heed lest he fall" (1 Corinthians 10:12).
To receive such knowledge of God’s will — so many miracles, so much guidance — and to transgress it is the most grievous pattern of the fall. And the Apostle sets this history before our eyes as a direct warning.
The Most Subtle Snare
St Ignatius Brianchaninov, in On the Prelest, repeatedly shows that most who fall in the spiritual life do so not because they did not know God’s will, but because they preferred their own, masked under a spiritual appearance. This is the most subtle snare: one’s own will never presents itself as such. It always presents itself as "calling," as "inspiration," as "a sign," as "peace in the heart," as "the working of grace." He who does not discern, falls.
VI. The Modern Snares in Finding God’s Will
Our age has produced a few particular forms of delusion concerning the finding of God’s will — forms which the Holy Fathers encountered in other guises, but which today are spread with unprecedented intensity. They must be named clearly.
1. Spiritual Sentimentalism
This is the most frequent snare: to identify God’s will with an inner "feeling," with a "peace in the heart," with a subjective "calling." This approach is foreign to Orthodox Tradition and belongs rather to Protestant-charismatic spirituality, yet it has penetrated Orthodox circles through popular literature.
St Ignatius Brianchaninov treated this snare explicitly in On the Prelest and in On the Jesus Prayer. He distinguishes several forms of delusion (in Slavonic, prelest) — among them daydreaming (meanie) and self-conceit about one’s own spiritual states — both manifesting as "feelings" which a man takes to be spiritual and as signs of God’s will. His teaching, repeated consistently throughout this work, is that inner feelings cannot be the first criterion in the spiritual life, but only the fruit of obedience and purification. He who places them before himself as a lamp to guide his way will be deceived.
Today, in the religious mass-marketplace, exactly the opposite is preached: "listen to your heart," "follow your feelings," "seek peace." The patristic teaching is firm: the criterion is not feeling, but conformity with Scripture, with the Fathers, with sound guidance. Peace in the heart comes as the fruit of obedience, not as a sign preceding it.
2. Masked Voluntarism
This is the form in which a man decides beforehand what he wants to do, then seeks confirmation — from his confessor, from Scripture (selectively read), from circumstances (selectively interpreted) — for what he has already decided. This is not the finding of God’s will, but the ratification of one’s own will under the appearance of discernment.
St John Climacus, in On Obedience in The Ladder, describes this phenomenon clearly: the man who goes to his guide with a decision already made does not receive the answer as a light, but forces the guide’s word to fit his own desire. And if the answer does not fit, he either leaves displeased or goes to another guide, then another, until he finds one who will confirm what he wanted from the beginning.
The sign of this snare is simple: if he who seeks God’s will becomes upset when the answer does not match his desire, then he was not truly seeking God’s will, but only a blessing for his own.
3. Fatalism
The reverse form of voluntarism: to confuse everything that happens with God’s will, thereby annulling both one’s own responsibility and the necessity of resisting evil. "This is God’s will, there is nothing I can do" — this phrase, repeated with piety, often conceals a grave confusion between the antecedent will (God’s good pleasure) and the consequent will (the permitted abandonment unto correction).
My sickness may be permitted by God — but it is not His absolute will; His will is my spiritual healing through bearing the sickness. The injustice I suffer is permitted — but it is not His absolute will; His will is the forgiveness of the one who has wronged me. The passion with which I struggle is permitted — but it is not His will; His will is my deliverance from it.
Fatalism turns Christianity into resignation. True Orthodox life is, on the contrary, a continual active struggle for the fulfilment of God’s will against the will of the enemy, of the world, and of fallen nature.
4. The Seeking of "Signs"
Especially in our day, marked by an ever-growing thirst for the miraculous, many Christians reduce the spiritual life to the seeking of "signs" — interpreted dreams, "unbelievable" coincidences, occurrences taken as mystical, words opened at random in a book.
Elder Cleopa Ilie treated this question at length in his work On Dreams and Visions (Anastasia Press, Bucharest, 1993; with subsequent editions at Bunavestire Press and Anastasia). His teaching is categorical: "Do not believe in dreams! Do not believe in visions!" There are, indeed, dreams from God — but, as Elder Cleopa says, "these are very rare in a man’s life, and a man cannot understand them unless one who has the gift of discernment of spirits comes to him." For the rest, the devil "appears in the form of Christ… in the form of the Mother of God, in the form of angels, in the form of saints, in every form", and whoever receives such apparitions falls into delusion.
The foundational word that Elder Cleopa lays down is that of the Apostle Paul: "For we walk by faith, not by sight" (2 Corinthians 5:7). And the tenth beatitude of the Saviour: "Blessed are they that have not seen, and yet have believed" (John 20:29). The Christian life is not lived from signs and visions, but from faith and obedience to the commandment. He who seeks signs opens the door to delusion.
5. Confusing God with One’s Own Conscience
The fifth snare, more subtle: to call "God’s will" one’s own convictions, values, or judgements. He who does this can no longer be corrected, for any contradiction of him becomes, in his mind, a contradiction of God. This form is very dangerous because it closes every path of repentance and of growth.
The Holy Fathers recommend, as the antidote to all these snares, the humble disposition: not to trust in one’s own views, to ask, to verify, to receive correction, to place one’s will under the will of the Church and of the Fathers. Only thus can one truly live in God’s will, without confusing it with one’s own.
VII. "Thy Will Be Done" — the Meaning of the Lord’s Prayer
The third petition of the Our Father concentrates in a few words the whole teaching about God’s will. The Holy Fathers have interpreted it at length — St John Chrysostom in his Homilies on Matthew, St Maximus the Confessor in his Commentary on the Our Father, St Cyril of Jerusalem in his Mystagogical Catecheses, St Gregory of Nyssa in On the Lord’s Prayer. From this richness we retain here a few essential lines.
The common teaching of the Fathers is that this petition expresses the conformity of the human will with the will of the Father through Christ in the Holy Spirit. It is not a resigned fatalism ("whatever happens, let it be"), but an active work: let Thy will be done also in me, as it is already fully done in the angels in heaven. The addition "on earth as it is in heaven" shows — according to the interpretation of St John Chrysostom — that the Saviour teaches us to desire that earth, that is, human life, our life, may become like heaven through the fulfilment of God’s will with the same zeal with which the heavenly powers fulfil it.
This means, very concretely, that the saying of this petition in prayer is not a formality. He who truly says "Thy will be done" does three things:
First, he renounces his own will where it stands against God’s will. This is not sentimentalism, but concrete decision. You cannot say "Thy will be done" and continue to do your own will in things you know to be against God.
Second, he receives the circumstances which God permits or appoints, without murmuring. Not fatalistically, but with hope that in all things God is working toward salvation for him who loves Him. This is the basic teaching of the ascetic Fathers: receiving with thanksgiving.
Third, he asks that God’s will be fulfilled in him, not only around him. The petition does not concern the world first, but the one who prays. Let Thy will be done in me, through me, upon me.
St Cyril of Jerusalem interprets the phrase "on earth as in heaven" by showing that "heaven" represents the angels, and "earth" represents men; those who pray this prayer ask that God’s will be fulfilled on earth through men with the same steadfastness with which the angels fulfil it in heaven.
In sum: this petition is not a generic request for "God’s will in the world," but the personal commitment of him who prays to fulfil this will himself. He who says it without this disposition of heart says it in vain.
VIII. The Daily Practice of Finding God’s Will
We now move to the concrete plane. How does a man work, day by day, to fulfil God’s will? Here are a few principles drawn from patristic teaching.
The Hierarchy of Discernment
In the face of any concrete situation — a decision to be made, a trial to be faced, a perplexity that will not let you rest — put to yourself, in turn, these three questions:
1. Is there a commandment of God that directly bears on what I have to do?
If yes, God’s will is already known. It does not need to be sought. It needs to be fulfilled. Most situations in our lives fall here. Must I tell the truth or lie? — the ninth commandment. Must I forgive the one who has wronged me? — the Sermon on the Mount. Must I remain in my marriage? — the seventh commandment. Must I honour my parents, even when it is hard? — the fifth commandment.
When the commandment is clear, "discernment" is no longer needed. But man often prefers to prolong the search for God’s will precisely in order to delay its fulfilment. This is not discernment — it is resistance to a known will.
2. There is a commandment, but I do not know how to apply it in my situation?
Here spiritual counsel comes in. The commandment is one — but its application to your particular circumstance requires the eye of a tested father. How strictly should I fast if I am sick? How should I honour my parents if they ask of me something against my conscience? How do I forgive when the wound is still fresh? These questions are not resolved from books, but with one’s confessor.
A tested father does not change the commandment, but applies it to your measure — so that you fall neither into harshness without benefit, nor into gentleness without responsibility.
3. There is no direct commandment on the matter?
Then you face the freedom of the Christian — but a freedom that is enlightened. Before you decide, give yourself time: prayer, humble examination, counsel. Not a freedom that decides hastily based on a first "feeling" or on a momentary enthusiasm. If the decision does not need to be made right now, it is better to wait a day, a week, a month — God’s will is revealed in time, the will of passion demands immediate action.
These three steps cut at the root most of the false dilemmas of the spiritual life. Before seeking God’s will "in the depths," check first whether it is not already lying before you, clearly, in the Gospel.
Prayer as the Place of Discernment
Prayer is not, in the patristic sense, a request for "instant illumination" to know what to do. It is, in the first place, the work by which the mind is purified of the passions, without which discernment is impossible. The constant teaching of the ascetic Fathers — St Isaac the Syrian, St Macarius the Egyptian, St Diadochus of Photiki, the authors of the Philokalia — is that the mind cannot see clearly so long as it is troubled by the passions. The purification of the mind comes through steadfast prayer, through daily reading of Scripture and the Fathers, through participation in the Holy Mysteries, through the struggle with one’s particular passions.
He who seeks to find God’s will without labouring to purify his mind asks a mirror full of dust to show his face clearly. He asks for what cannot come.
Waiting as Part of Discernment
One of the most common errors of sincere Christians is haste. They want to find God’s will now, immediately, so they can act. Sts Barsanuphius the Great and John the Prophet, great ascetics in a monastery near Gaza in the sixth century, left in their corpus of spiritual responses (Spiritual Letters, Philokalia, vol. 11, Stăniloae edition) an entire chapter titled On Perfect Longsuffering — a sign of the central place this teaching occupies in their guidance. To disciples who came with pressing questions, they responded most often by exhorting them not to hurry, but to wait for matters to clear of themselves, through prayer and patience.
Waiting itself is part of the work by which God reveals His will to you, for in patience passions settle and thoughts grow clear. Patience is not indecision. It is the disposition not to make rash decisions when matters are not yet clear. In most cases, if a decision is not required immediately, it is better to wait than to hurry. God’s will is revealed in time; only the will of passion demands immediate action.
Attention to the Passion Hidden Behind "Discernment"
This is the most delicate point. Often, what we call a "dilemma" in the spiritual life is not a real dilemma, but a conflict between the clear commandment and the hidden passion that refuses to submit. "Discernment" becomes, in this case, only a delay of obedience under the appearance of spiritual examination.
The question to ask is then a sincere one: "if I did not have this attachment, this fear, this desire, what would Scripture tell me clearly?" The answer, when honest, reveals that the "dilemma" was never a dilemma at all; it was a resistance to a known will.
The Inner Sign: Disturbance
St Silouan the Athonite, a monk of Mount Athos known for his complete surrender of his will to God, gave a simple criterion — and one very hard to evade — by which a man can know, in practice, whether or not he is in God’s will: "if you grieve over anything, it means you have not surrendered yourself fully to God’s will." (Between the Hell of Despair and the Hell of Humility, Deisis Press, Sibiu.)
This does not ask you to be cold to the suffering of your neighbour. St Silouan’s words about his prayer for the whole world — "he grieves over all men day and night, and his heart pities every creature of God" — show that his compassion for his neighbour and for the whole creation was unceasing. His word refers, rather, to the disturbance for our own things — for what we have lost, for what upsets us, for what does not turn out as we wished. He who has surrendered to God’s will — says St Silouan — "fears nothing — neither storm nor thieves, nothing." And conversely, he who loves his own will "has never peace in his soul and is always discontent: this is not so, this is not right."
The absolute model of this surrender is the Mother of God. St Silouan points to her word: "Behold the handmaid of the Lord; be it unto me according to thy word!" (Luke 1:38). This is the measure. The one who can speak these same words from the heart, in the face of every circumstance, has found God’s will.
"Thy Will Be Done" as a Permanent Disposition
Finally, the Christian life knows only one lasting disposition: that in which a man lives permanently in the spirit of "Thy will be done." Not only at evening prayer, not only at the Divine Liturgy, but at every choice, at every circumstance, at every thought. To live in this way is to be free of one’s own will, receiving in exchange the true freedom — the freedom of the sons of God.
The patristic teaching, repeated in many forms throughout the philokalic literature, is that the Lord is hidden in His commandments, and those who seek to find Him discover Him in the measure that they fulfil them. This is, in the end, the whole teaching: God’s will is not a mystery to be discovered, but a work to be fulfilled. And he who begins to fulfil it begins to know it.
IX. Conclusion
The teaching of the Holy Fathers on the finding of God’s will can be gathered into a few unshakable points.
First: God’s will is not, for the most part, a hidden mystery. It is clearly revealed in Holy Scripture, in the holy canons, in the unanimous teaching of the Fathers, in the liturgical life of the Church. Salvation requires of us first the fulfilment of what we already know, not the seeking of what we do not.
Second: where clarity is lacking, spiritual guidance comes in — under the direction of a tested father rooted in Tradition. And where even this does not resolve the matter, the circumstances of life come in — read, however, through the light of the first two ways, never as a source unto themselves.
Third: the Saints fulfilled God’s will not through pious "feelings," but through conformity with the commandments, with the Gospel, with Tradition — often paid for with the resistance of nature, with persecution, with martyrdom. This is the true measure.
Fourth: those who, on the contrary, knew God’s will and did their own — Saul, Jonah, the rich young man, Judas, Israel in the wilderness — are a sad witness that the knowledge of God’s will does not save; only its fulfilment saves.
Fifth: the modern snares — sentimentalism, voluntarism, fatalism, the seeking of signs, the identification of one’s own will with God’s will — are so many forms of delusion against which the Holy Fathers, especially St Ignatius Brianchaninov, have left us clear warnings.
Sixth and last: the whole teaching is concentrated in the word of the Saviour: "If any man will do His will, he shall know of the doctrine" (John 7:17). Knowledge comes through fulfilment. He who begins to do what he already knows — receives light for what he does not yet know. He who delays fulfilment in expectation of a "more complete" knowledge remains in his own will to the end.
This is the whole way. It is not complicated; it is, however, asked of us in earnest. "Thy will be done" is not a word to be spoken, but a word to be lived. And its living begins today, in the smallest choice, at the nearest commandment we know and have not fulfilled.