I am about to ask a question for which I have no answer. But then isn’t that what life is about, trying to find answers to unanswerable questions?

The other day I happened to go onto Facebook. There was a post from one of my Facebook friends who is going through a nasty custody battle with her daughter’s father. The post basically said something like “If one more person tells me it must be God’s will I will…” you can fill in the rest.

She is referring to the daughter’s father getting full custody and not allowing her unsupervised visits, etc. Before we go further this has nothing to do with parental rights or even about her case. But what she wrote started me thinking about the subject of God’s will. How, or can we even know what God’s will is? Especially when you are trying to determine God’s will for someone else. After all, we have three separate people here: Mom, Dad, and Child. As we are taught God has a plan (or will) for each of these, each is a separate entity.

Now I believe that God has one main will for each of us, He wants us to spend eternity with Him in Heaven and therefore we should do everything we can to get there. These steps are detailed throughout the teachings of Jesus and the other apostles. I also believe that He has other plans for us each of us as well. We may never know what they are as they can be tough to discern. The chances of God having the same specific will for more than one person is slim. In our example, would God have the same will for mom, dad, and child?

There is also the problem that our will may not be the same as God’s will. Mom’s will is to have her daughter with her full time or at least half the time, certainly in a more equitable manner than appears now. Dad’s will is that he wants full custody of the daughter at the total exclusion of mom. And the will of the daughter is probably to be with both of them equally.

We can assume God’s will is probably that all three live together in peace and harmony, loving each other, but that won’t happen. God wants everyone to be happy but in this case, none of the three will be happy, so how can we say whatever happens is God’s will? But there is a bigger problem here: What, if none of our three subjects believes in God so they won’t even try to discern His will. In this case, I know that Mom is a Catholic and a regular mass attendee, at least she was. But it sounds that Dad isn’t. If this is the case then we can assume that one could be influenced by God and one by the Evil One. Again, I am just using this as an example to talk about God’s will and not about these people. All I know of them is what I can infer from a Facebook post.

God has also given us free will, which is a whole other theological debate. This means God can’t force us to do His will, well at least not theoretically, after all, there is that whole turning Lot’s wife into a pillar of salt thing. If Dad doesn’t follow God’s will, if he doesn’t even try to, then it will be impossible for the daughter to follow God’s will as well. The same goes for Mom if she is able to discern God’s will if Dad doesn’t then how can she?

Is there an answer? Unfortunately, I don’t think it lies in the court system, but that is the only choice right now. It is much too easy to manipulate the court system, especially if one side has more funds available to them than the other. I realize I am straying from the original point I was trying to make which is when there are three separate wills involved, who has God’s?

In researching the subject of “God’s Will” I have found plenty of information on how to discern God’s will for ourselves, but there is nothing I have found yet dealing with conflicting wills. One can not force their will upon another. Well, they can by using force such as in this case through the court system. So I guess we are back where we started, what happens if there are multiple wills involved?

Is it God’s will that Mom should suffer? God loves us, He doesn’t want us to suffer. Is it God’s will the child should suffer? I think not. What can be done when we have a case of four conflicting wills? Certainly, God’s will is above all others, but how can we determine God’s will with something like this?

I would love to hear your thoughts on this and in the meantime, I will keep searching for an answer.

Also, I have just published an eBook titled “A Light for My Path” and it is free, just click on the title.