What is the will of God?  As Christians around the world move closer to Passion Week, the universally agreed upon, I suspect, most intense portion of Lent, many have undoubtedly found occasion to read Jesus' words in the Garden of Gesthsemane, recorded in all three synoptic gospels--Matthew, Mark, and Luke--to God, namely, "Father, if it is possible, let this cup [his impending and certain crucifixion] pass from me; yet not as I will, but as you will," and asking themselves this question:  can I be this unreservedly committed, too?
     Did Jesus ask that his own will be fulfilled?  No.  He asked that God's will be fulfilled.  But this gets us no closer to answering our question:  what is the will of God?  The key is, I think, to picture God's will not as something to find but as something into which we come, something that we, if we strive earnestly to rid ourselves of all hopes and intentions of self and self-aggrandizement, will come to see.  God's will is often something we least expect to find, much less see, but that's its beauty:  we have nothing to do with its genesis or meaningfulness.  Finding God's will is more a function of our willingness to let go than of our ability to discern.  If we are looking, we may never see; but if we are simply willing, we probably will.
     Unlike us, Jesus knew all too well what God's specific will was for him.  And he wished that he could avoid it.  But that's not the point.  The point is that Jesus told God he accepted whatever would come.  As should we.  We wander in this world largely blind, really, confused and bewildered creatures who, through no choice of our own, found ourselves with sentient existence, found ourselves with lives of hopes, ambitions, passions, and dreams.  We do not know what will come next.
     And we never will.  We'll never see everything.  In his humanness, Jesus didn't, either.  But he submitted; he opened himself to what he couldn't know.  Then he knew.
     Jesus had to first tell God that he couldn't before he could.  And in this is the will of God.