by Gerald K. Hibbert
Source: Hibbert, Gerald K., ed. Studies in Quaker Thought and Practice, Part II. London:
Friends' Home Service, 1936.
This Document is on The Quaker Writings Home Page.
Everything will depend on our own idea of God. In this of course we differ widely among
ourselves, but in proportion as our idea of God becomes more like Jesus's conception of Him, we
find it more and more natural to believe in "the guiding hand of God," and to feel that He has a
purpose for each one of us to fulfill. It is largely a matter of faith (which does not mean credulity)
backed up by a steadily deepening experience of the spiritual life. If God is the Father of our
spirits, " in whom we live and move and have our being," He will most certainly have a Purpose
both for the universe and for each individual soul - the purpose, namely, that is inextricably
bound up with Love, the full development and ultimate well-being of every object of that love. Of
course, if God be impersonal or not Love, this falls to the ground. It is based entirely on a belief
in such a God as the God of Jesus.
Our immediate subject is that of a Purpose for the individual rather than for the universe. We are
not now concerned with the question "Is God revealed in History ?" One can only remark here
that on a long view of the past it is difficult to resist the conclusion that on the whole nations reap
what they sow, that there is a nemesis which attends cruelty, injustice, and oppression, and that
loyalty, justice, and magnanimity tend to life. The state of the world to-day (1936) is pretty clear
evidence to many of us that there are certain moral principles which cannot be disregarded with
impunity, and in this we see a Divine Purpose.
Coming to the question of a Purpose for the individual, it is certain that the men and women who
have been the great creative and inspiring personalities have implicitly believed themselves to be
not their own, but gripped and commissioned by some Higher Power, whose they are and whom
they serve. They give differing names to this Higher Power, and their conceptions of it vary, but
there is always this sense of an imperious Call to which they cannot be deaf. Whether it be Amos
with his "The Lord God hath spoken; who can but prophesy?" or Paul with his "Woe unto me if
I preach not the gospel," or Luther with his "Here stand I; I can no other," it is all the same
experience. Nor is this confined to Judaism and Christianity: it is found in all the great religions of
the world in varying degree, and also in religions that are neither great nor organized.
This comes out markedly in the case of Jesus himself. Again and again does he use of himself the
strong phrase "It is binding on me," "It behoves me." He goes through life as a man under
authority, as one who is commissioned by his Father to his great task, and as one who delights to
do that Father's Will. It was not a matter of outward compulsion, of course. He could have
transgressed his Father's Will had he chosen. It was a sense of fulfilling with utter and complete
joy his Father's purpose for him gladly surrendering himself to the fulfillment of that purpose
because he and the Father were one in spirit, in mind, and in will. "Lo, I delight to do Thy will, O
Lord!"
Should this be the normal experience of every human being? Personally I think it should. As we
in our degree and up to our measure yield ourselves fully to the Divine Constraint, placing
ourselves gladly at the disposal of God eager to find out His will and then to do it, realising that
we are not our own but under His authority and representing Him, it will surely give us a sense of
the worth and dignity of human personality such as we never had before, and a joy of abandon
that comes from the free surrender of our own will to the highest that it knows. We do our best
work when we forget ourselves, when we are in the grip of some high ideal, when (in the
language of the Christian) we enter into the joy of our Lord.
There are dangers, you say: of course there are dangers. Is there any life worth living that is
without them? The higher we aim, the greater the possible fall: corruptio optimi pessima, the
corruption of the best is the worst. Here are some dangers that we must all have faced in our own
experience, even if we have not seen them exemplified in others. There is the natural inclination
to claim infallibility for oneself and one's message, or at any rate to assume that the message that
comes to us is " the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth." We tend to magnify our
office, to over-stress our authority, to identify our own glimpse of truth with Ultimate Reality.
Then there is the possibility that instead of our molding our will to God's, we are twisting His
will to suit our own - that what we may deem to be a Call, a Vocation, is merely the tricking out
in respectable colours of our own selfish whim or desire. Or again there is the temptation (as is
seen in the earliest days of our own Society) to under-value the historical witness of the
community, and to trust over-much to our own immediate " openings " or sense of guidance. All
these are risks that must be faced, but given honesty and sincerity, a sense of humour and
proportion, and a living faith in a loving God, we can avoid them, or at any rate triumph over
them, even though we fall occasionally bruised by the way-side.
When all is said and done, however, it is at times extremely difficult to know whether guidance is
real or imagined, whether a sense of Vocation is really God calling or our own longing (though
often the two coincide), whether in taking a certain important step we are really fulfilling God's
will or not. I do not want to under-rate the difficulties: at certain times in life they become acute.
I would suggest one word, not as a solution of all our problems, but as pointing the way we
might well travel in the hope of solving some of them - the word Discipline. Is it not possible
that in our re-action against the morbid and excessive types of Discipline so often obtaining in the
past, we have gone to the other extreme? Surely nothing great is achieved without discipline, a
true self-discipline, gladly and voluntarily imposed on oneself because one sees that without it
one can - not rise to the highest. This does not mean the hair shirt of the ascetic, nor the looking
around for extra troubles and mortifications in life: there are quite enough of these in the
ordinary course of existence! But it does mean I think, an attempt to weigh up the values of life
as one surveys it as a whole, and a realization that as a rule one will have to give up certain
things that are in themselves good, in order to attain something else which is still better. For
example, we find that our time and energy are limited; we cannot do everything we should like
to do. What then are we going to give up ? How are we going to spend our evenings and our
leisure time? What about Sundays, when we do get some time that we can call our own? We do
not lay down rules for others, but each of us must face up to questions like these, and answer
them honestly. I suspect that most of us will find that we let ourselves off too easily, and that a
little more toughness of fiber and firmness of will would open out undreamt of realms of service
and growth.
Another way in which we might usefully discipline ourselves is in our manner of spending money.
This is not a question for the wealthy only it concerns us all. It is as important to spend rightly as
it is to earn our livelihood by honorable means. The Christian will do his spending as all other
things, "to the glory of God." Much of our spending is careless, useless, possibly actually
harmful. Simplicity is surely the ideal, but how easy to depart from! How insidiously does the
passion for possessing grow upon us, and how quickly do luxury and ease tend to hinder us from
"sitting loose" to the things of this world! There is much room for thought and discussion here.
Other ways in which we might profitably discipline ourselves will readily occur to us. The whole
point is that the disciplined life becomes by degrees a life of insight and sensitiveness and balance,
and so it is enabled more fully to interpret God's will than the unregulated life of license. We need
coherence, we must have our higher faculties controlling our lower, each self must be a unity
and not a chaos of warring elements, and this can only come through self-discipline. The whole
history of the spiritual life shows that it is the disciplined soul which is the best interpreter of
God's Will. We shall be less likely to make mistakes about our Vocation as we become more and
more disciplined. " Woolliness," whether of the intellect or of the emotions, is a poor guide to
Truth.
This leads us, in conclusion, to consider what is meant by Surrender. What really happens when
we surrender to the Divine Will? Clearly it does not mean the annihilation of our own will, but
the blending of that will with the Will of God. Our own becomes the fuller and the deeper in the
process, only it ceases to be in the narrow sense "our own." As we practice the presence of God
we realize we are in contact with a greater enfolding Personality, and so our own personality is
stimulated. This contact raises us to a higher level, gives us new powers and strengthens old
ones, endows us with insight and foresight, so that we become "super-normal." We see the right
thing to do, we sense the need of a fellow-man unrealized before, we acquire a flair for reading
the hearts of our comrades. There is nothing weird or uncanny about it; it should be the most
natural thing in life.
As we thus get deeper into the life of God, we get to understand Him better as we come to love
Him more. Just as we learn to read the heart of a loved one on earth, and to anticipate his wishes
before they are expressed, so it is with us and God. We get more and more to look at things
from His point of view, to regard this world "in the light of eternity," to put first things first and
second things second. We become more sensitive to His call, and so find it easier to distinguish
between His Will and our own selfish desire. We are not guaranteed infallibility, but we are
guaranteed a sensitiveness to the things of the spirit as an increasing result of our walk with
God.
Learning the Will of God is not like turning up a Ready Reckoner or looking up a train in Bradshaw: God is not the Supreme Convenience of the Universe. Our knowledge of His Will and purpose for us can only come through communion with Him, and communion implies discipline and surrender. There are no short cuts in the spiritual realm. "He called for my Will: and I resigned it at His Call; but He returned me His own in token of His love" (Thomas Story, "Song of Praise to the Saints in Zion ").