My father died slowly—nine excruciating months after being diagnosed with a brain tumor. When well-meaning friends tried to comfort me with “it is God’s will,” it made me angry. Surely God did not intend such torture for my father or my family. We had prayed for healing and had tried for a cure with everything that Western medicine had to offer. Did my friends mean that we had been fighting against God’s will during that time?

When I got past the pain and anger, I knew that I had to learn more about God’s will–because I want to live in it. My journey started with a small, easy-to-read book of five sermons entitled The Will of God written by London pastor Leslie Weatherhead during World War II. He suggests is used so loosely that we are confused about its real meaning. Pastor Weather head described three distinctions to “the will of God.”

• Intentional (God’s ideal plan for man—his original creation)
• Circumstantial (God’s plan within certain circumstances—what we experience in our lives in this world)
• Ultimate (God’s final realization of his purposes to bring man back into harmony with him forever)

God created (intended) a perfect world with God and man interacting in harmony. That world included ideal freedom for mankind to choose what we would believe and what we would do—even though he knew that eventually someone would make a bad choice and evil would enter the world.

No one's ever seen or heard anything like this, Never so much as imagined anything quite like it—what God has arranged for those who love him. 
1 Corinthians 2:9, MSG

Then sin entered the world, and God’s intentional plan was stymied by circumstances. Because God is love, and He loves us, He didn’t leave us there. Through his circumstantial will, Jesus came to earth to die in order to pay for the sins of each and every one of us. and God’s ultimate will is realized. We are brought back to unity with him.

Let’s apply this thinking to my response to the illness and death of my father. God had designed this man to be a people person, an enthusiastic and infectious leader. He used these talents to serve God as a pastor and church planter for his entire adult life. Then evil did terrible things to him—attacked his body through a cancerous tumor in his brain, changed his personality, crippled his body, until slowly he died. Yet, through it all, he knew: God is his father, the ultimate meaning of the universe is love, and God’s ultimate will of bringing him to live with him forever will be accomplished.

Trust God. God is love. Rest in His nature and His will for you.