HALIFAX, Nova Scotia, March 24, 2025 – There’s a difference between what God wills and what God permits.

This is important, so listen up here.

Jesus always did that which pleases the Father. We know that Jesus always did that which pleases the Father because he told us he did: “I always do that which pleases the Father.”  When he said he always did that which pleases the Father, Jesus meant he always did God’s will. Again, this is important, so listen up here. It’s important because God’s will is not the same as what God permits, and we need to know the difference.

GOD’S WILL

God’s will is that everyone should do what pleases him. God states multiple times in scripture that if we only do that which pleases him, life will be good for us, because then he can give us all the blessings he wants to give us during our time here. Doing God’s will and doing what pleases the Father is the same thing.

And what is God’s will as it plays out in our everyday lives? Keep the Commandments. Choose the good. Follow Jesus’ example in everything you do, say, and think. Keep your eyes on the prize of your eternal reward, not the earthly ones. Suffer what you need to suffer, whether as an earned reward or a test. Suffer patiently and in silence. Give what God commands you to give, speak what God commands you to speak, be silent when God commands you to be silent. Do whatever God advises you to do one-on-one. Help those he explicitly directs you to help. And remember that not everything God tells you needs to be told to others. Most of what God told Jesus he kept to himself.

GOD’S PERMISSION

God’s permission is not God’s will: God’s permission is our free will intersecting with God’s justice. Doing what God permits is not the same as doing God’s will. Jesus didn’t say he always did that which the Father permits; he said he always did that which pleases the Father; he always did God’s will.

Satan does what God permits. Once upon a time (actually, once upon an eternity), Satan did God’s will, but that all ended with the rebellion in Heaven. Now Satan can only do what God permits: that’s his one and only job description. Satan and all those who follow him can only do what God permits. They cannot do more than what God permits, and you can bet the bank they won’t do less. They hate us and want only for us to suffer during our time here and then lose the reward of Heaven. No matter what they tell their human recruits when they’re enticing them into their ranks, Satan and his horde want only for us to suffer to the most extreme degree, ending with our eternal damnation. God wants the best for us and Satan wants the worst, which is why God strictly limits what Satan is permitted to do, as we see in Job.

God permits suffering as a reward for bad choices, but he also permits suffering as a test. He doesn’t will that we suffer; he permits us to suffer, but always with the proviso that our suffering, if we handle it righteously, will be to our benefit.

When God permits you to suffer, don’t try to avoid it. Don’t revel in it, either (it’s not God’s will that you revel in suffering; reveling in suffering is not a godly response: nor is boasting about it). Endure your suffering. Get through it. Come out the other side. Be silent in the face of God’s tests and negative rewards. If you have them coming, you have no right to complain; if you’re undergoing a test, you have no reason to complain, because “all things work together for good to them that love God, to them that are the called.”

God created evil and permits it to thrive only when and where it’s been earned. He doesn’t will evil; he permits it. He uses the forces of evil as a reward for bad choices and as temptations and tests, all of whose end goal is to bring us up higher. Even babies can be on the receiving end of evil, bearing in mind that souls come into the world already sin-stained. The only one who arrived here sin-free was Jesus.

TL;DR

God’s will is that we do what pleases him, like Jesus did, so that everything will be good for us. Jesus is our best and greatest example of how to do God’s will. But because not everyone chooses to do his will, God permits an earned and precise measure of evil to exist in the form of temptations, tests, and suffering, with the aim of bringing us up higher. God wills that we not only to come to knowledge of him – the ultimate good – but form a close and loving bond with him, like he has with Jesus. This can only happen if we do God’s will.