A Circa Text on the Sovereign Will

1. My friend, you bring me words of power and finality, of a Sovereign God who portions out destiny and a will that governs all things, be it for good or for evil.

2. You read these texts and your heart becomes troubled. You ask, "If all is decided, what is the meaning of my heart? If God is Omnipotent, where do I begin and where does He end? Am I free, or am I bound?"

3. This questioning is the first distinction. It is the mind drawing two circles in the sand—one for the Heavens and one for the earth—and then weeping because it cannot bridge them. This is the disease of seeking preferences. You prefer to be "free," or you prefer to be "guided," and in this preference, the Way is lost.

4. You have heard it said that God rules over all, but I say to you, where do you look for this ruler? Do you look in the whirlwind or the earthquake? Do you look for a hand that separates good from evil?

5. I say to you, look at the mustard seed. It does not argue about its destiny. It does not question the will that pulls it toward the sun. It rests in the "circa" of its own becoming. It is not yet the tree, and it is no longer the seed. It lives in the soft, approximate grace of the now.

6. This is the Kingdom.

7. To demand to know the plan, to ask "Am I predestined?" is to be the foolish man who builds his house on the shifting sand of argument. You are laying up for yourself treasures of certainty, but moth and rust will destroy them.

8. For where your treasure is—in the answer, in the doctrine, in the fixed point—there your heart will be also, lost in confusion.

9. But the wise build their house circa the rock.

10. They live around the mystery. They do not demand to know the exact hour of salvation, but are present to the light. They are a work in progress. They let go of the need for the sharp edges of "sovereign" and "subject," "good" and "evil," "will" and "fate."

11. What, then, is the will of the Father?

12. It is not a decree. It is the love in your heart for your enemy. It is the plank you remove from your own eye. It is the breath that enters your body without your command.

13. Do not waste time in arguments about the ungraspable. Let go of the need to measure the will of God.

14. Live gently, in the in-between. Be fluid. Be merciful to your own imperfection.

15. That is the Way. That is the will. They are not two.