God's Will Of Good Pleasure

There comes a time, if one is paying attention, when patterns in one's life become undeniable.  There is a... "ah hah!" moment.  A time when one realizes what its all about. Some call it "enlightenment". Thomas Merton tells us that true enlightenment can only occur when a person recognizes, accepts and lives what God has willed.  It is all in the action!  But that topic is material for another blog.  For now, I will say that I have arrived at a discovery that if I act upon it, can only be beneficial for me.   I am sharing this with the hope that it will be helpful to you as well.            

The change in my life that I am desperately in need of is based on my voluntarily submitting to "God's will of good pleasure."

From Philippians 2:13... we are told that:  "...not in your own strength...
for it is God who is all the while effectually at work in you,
both to will and to work for His good pleasure and
satisfaction and delight.  Do all things without grumbling and
faultfinding and complaining."

Do all things that we recognize as pleasing to God. 

What I have slowly come to realize is that I must attempt to do what
I recognize is pleasing to God, for there is where the peace I have
been searching for is found.  I understand now that it is a peace
that only Christ can offer me, because I have tried everything else.
In other words..."God's will of good pleasure" is about embracing,
gladly, what God has willed in my life.  There can be no more
messing around, no more "swivel hipping" my way through
life in an attempt to realize "a happy ending."  No more
pretending or posing.  I must remain focused on the
concept of "God's will of good pleasure"...
then go deeper until I am walled up inside Christ. 
For as St. Augustine once wrote:  "I will not rest, until
I rest in Him."

Hoping that through the process of osmosis I will be able
to understand and embrace "God's will of good pleasure",  
I have listened over and over again to the monk's voice
speaking God's truth as he, Merton, understood it.
(Thomas Merton on the 12 Degrees of Humility)
I listen as though my life depends on it... because more and
more it feels like it does!  My turmoil, my lack of peace...
my anxiety is born out of my laboring, no... my wrestling
with God's will. I know that now and I believe that
a sick spirit comes from struggling with what the soul
already knows is good and right. 
So I ask myself:  Could it be that wresting with God
is the source of madness itself?