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Aligning With God’s Will Via Empathy And Action

Aligning With God’s Will Via Empathy And Action

Last updated on: September 22, 2026 at 1:25 pm by Henry Karlson

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Aligning With God’s Will Via Empathy And Action 2026-09-22T13:25:54-05:00 Henry Karlson

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The Christian walk of life can be, and is, both extremely difficult and easy at the same time. This is one of the many paradoxes of the Christian faith. Grace makes it easy because it means we do not have to do everything ourselves, but the way we engage such grace, the way we activate it, requires us to change our ways, to fight against sin, and that can be very difficult, especially if our sin has become habitual. We have to struggle against sin throughout our lives. If we do so, even when we fail, we will find God’s grace will be sufficient. On the other hand, if we give up, and become slothful, we risk having to face the consequences of our actions, because we have not properly engaged the grace given to us. It is important for us to recognize that grace does not override our freedom, which is why it doesn’t force salvation, or even freedom, upon us; we can resist grace, turn against God, and find our freedom undermined, or we can cooperate with grace, and as we do so, find our ability to act, to make positive choices for ourselves, enhanced.

Jesus told us that he would lighten our burden, and he did so when he took on the sins of the world upon his shoulders. He willingly took on the consequences our actions upon himself so that we do not have to do so all by ourselves. But he still expects us to change. He expects metanoia. We must struggle against our worst inclinations, our inordinate desires; we must replace our bad habits with good ones, vices with virtues. If it were not for Christ’s work on the cross, we would have a very limited ability to change, but with grace, we are not only able to change and return to our “natural perfection,” we are able to transcend it.

We have been told that when we pray, we should pray that God’s will to be done on earth as it is in heaven; if we mean it, we will do what we can to help make it happen. We will begin within, where we have the most ability to effect change. We will coordinate our will with God’s will, and act in accordance to God’s desires. To do that, we must be willing to learn what God wants. We must be open and ready to listen to God in the ways God speaks to us. This is what made the prophets did – they perceived, one way or another, God’s will, and expressed what they learned, hoping to bring positive change into the world. Even if others would not listen do them, they would do what they can to conform to what they learned, although sometimes, reluctantly and after many struggles (as the story of Jonah shows us). They became, in themselves, a representation of the way we could coordinate our lives to follow God’s will, and in doing so, show the world what it is God wants.

God’s way, as Jesus has revealed to us, is the way of love. To act upon God’s will, we must become merciful instead of vengeful, desiring what is good, not just for ourselves, but for everyone. When we pray, we should do what we can, not only to recite prayers we know, not only to speak to God, but to truly open ourselves up to God, to put ourselves in God’s presence and to let that presence speak to us in our whole being. We should pray with a desire to know and understand God’s will. If we are open to it, we will find ourselves changing, and our will should find itself aligning with God’s will. To be sure, we should not expect instant change. We will likely need to struggle, as we will find many things getting in the way. But if we do so, if we wrestle with God against our own worst inclinations, not only will we see ourselves changing, others will do so as well. Hopefully they will see God at work in and through that change, that is, they will see us reflecting more and more of God’s love in all that we do. Thus, according to an anonymous monastic elder, if we want to know if our prayers are being accepted by God, we should look to the way we think and deal with our neighbor:

When someone is on his guard not to wrong his neighbour, he can be confident in his mind that his prayer was acceptable to God. But if he wrong his neighbour, then his prayer is an abomination and unacceptable, for the groaning of the one who is wronged will not allow the prayer of him who wronged him to come before God. [1]

That monk did not say we will not slip up, because we likely will. However, if we are on guard, if we watch over ourselves and the way we deal with others, we will struggle against our worst inclinations, slowly finding ourselves gaining ground, until at last, we will be victorious, replacing them with new habits, habits which reflect the way of love.

What, however, does the elder mean when he says we should watch over ourselves? He is telling us, like many great spiritual masters, that we should examine our thoughts, our wishes, our inclinations, and compare them to what we know is right and just. If our habits or desires would have us act against our conscience, we should follow our conscience. To make sure our conscience is able to do the best it can to guide is, we are called to help develop it as well. We are to inform our conscience by study, such as by studying the teachings of Christ (as mediated by those who have shown us some sense of holiness, such as the saints), and by personal experience, where we observe the good and bad done by our actions, so that we can choose to do what is better in the future.

We are all expected to listen to our conscience; we are expected to heed it, even when it is not perfectly formed or developed. For, if we do so, we show our desire for what is good, and that desire will help us better inform our conscience. If we don’t, we risk seeing our minds with all kinds of evil thoughts, thoughts which will cover or override our conscience. Whatever we seed into our minds will influence us and our actions. Our conscience should help us sift through our thoughts, making sure we do not act upon them when we know they are bad or would lead us astray, and the more we resist such bad actions, the more those thoughts will vanish from our minds. To be sure, it is not just what we think which matters, what we do with them is just as important:

An elder said, “No wickedness which is not translated into action is wickedness; no righteousness which is not translated into action is righteousness. A man who has neither good nor bad logismoi is like the land of Sodom and Gomorrah because it is salty, producing neither crop nor weed, whereas the good ground brings forth wheat and tares.”[2]

Our thoughts, or logismoi, often serve as the foundation for our actions; we should embrace good thoughts when they emerge, allowing them to take fruit by acting upon them, while we should do what we can to ignore whatever bad thoughts cross our mind, not letting them take a hold of us and motivate us into action. If we find we have neither good or bad thoughts crossing our minds, we must do what we can to seed good thoughts in them; we can do this either by acting in ways which we have already learned are good and virtuous. The more we do so, the more they will end up influencing our thoughts, causing us to think about the good which we do, seeing good thoughts that will help us do more good in the future.

As the heart of the law and prophets is the teaching that we are to love both God and our neighbor, we should do what we can to seed such love into our hearts and minds. The more we do acts of love, the more we will find love being seeded in us. To love, empathy is a must. It helps us understand the plight of our neighbor. If we find it difficult for us to empathize with strangers, many great spiritual writers encourage us to consider how we would treat a loved one, like a member of our family, or a close friend, if they suffered what such strangers were experiencing. How would we feel if they are hurt? He would we feel if they suffer some grave injustice? By learning how we already embrace empathy for some people, we can then extrapolate that and expand upon it until we are able to have empathy for the needs of everyone. This is why empathy is a must and not something to be ridiculed or rejected. Empathy helps us to love others better, which is what God wants us to do. And if it is what God wants us to do, then, we should want it as well. It is after all, what we pray for, when we pray for God’s will to be done on earth as it is in heaven.

[1] John Wortley, trans., The Anonymous Sayings Of The Desert Fathers: A Select Edition And Complete English Translation (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2013), 341 [N508].

[2] John Wortley, trans., The Anonymous Sayings Of The Desert Fathers: A Select Edition And Complete English Translation, 349 [N515].

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