Kelsi Vanada

Dear Friends,

Trying to discern God’s will for my life when I was a high school senior figuring out my next step precipitated the first real crack in my childhood faith.

From what I’d gathered, if I prayed hard enough about which college to attend, God would tell me. After all, I wanted to hear from God. I was waiting—and I was afraid to make a move without God’s approval. I never got a specific answer, which was pretty devastating at the time.

How do all of you think about God’s will?

In today’s Gospel reading, John 6:37-51, Jesus tells a crowd that has gathered to listen to him: “I have come down from heaven, not to do my own will, but the will of him who sent me.” He goes on to say: “And this is the will of him who sent me, that I should lose nothing of all that he has given me, but raise it up on the last day.”

Similarly, there is Ephesians 1:9-10, a passage I now cling to: “he has made known to us the mystery of his will, according to his good pleasure that he set forth in Christ, as a plan for the fullness of time, to gather up all things in him, things in heaven and things on earth.”

We’re to be gathered up in God. With God, of God, like God, one with God through Christ. I think that can look a lot of different ways in our lives, because we’re individuals on different paths. But God’s will isn’t a frightening unknown anymore. I can rest in it.

Peace,

—Kelsi