“Teach me to do Your will, for You are my God; Your Spirit is good. Lead me in the land of uprightness” (Ps 143:10).
Here the word “will” is the Hebrew retsonecha, “pleasure.” How can we know what pleases Him? Ah, the Spirit of God is standing by. He can lead us into the right land, where all its inhabitants live for the smile of God.
Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn’s “One Day in the Life of Ivan Denisovich” describes 24 hours in the life of a prisoner who is incarcerated in a Russian labor camp, the infamous Soviet Gulag. Ivan, the protagonist, endures all kinds of horror under the Communist regime. One day he is praying with his eyes closed when a fellow prisoner notices him and ridicules his faith. “Prayers won’t help you get out of here any faster,” he says bitterly. Opening his eyes, Ivan answers gently, “I do not pray to get out of prison but to do the will of God.” The more of heaven there is in our lives, the less of earth we will covet (see the secret in Mt 6:10).