Being nourished by doing God's will

In today's Magnificat morning prayers, there is a passage from Psalm 119:17-24 which speaks of the psalmist's desire to know God's commands and to do God's will. The preface for this passage introduces this reading with another brief passage from John 4, which is part of the story of Jesus' encounter with the Samaritan woman at the well:

Meanwhile the disciples besought him, saying, “Rabbi, eat.” But he said to them, “I have food to eat of which you do not know.” So the disciples said to one another, “Has any one brought him food?” Jesus said to them, “My food is to do the will of him who sent me, and to accomplish his work...."

That got me thinking about the difference between the way Jesus experienced doing his Father's will, and our own experience, which often is much less enthusiastic about doing the Father's will. For some reason, I then thought of a very interesting comment that I heard many years ago in a talk by, I believe, Ralph Martin. In this talk, the speaker was recounting his experience in learning to ski. He had basically taught himself to ski, but then later in life had the opportunity to get a lesson from a genuine skiing instructor. He was amazed at how difficult this was. The problem was that he had taught himself a number of incorrect techniques, which were quite limited in what they could accomplish. If he wanted to learn the right way to do those things (such as the proper way to turn), then he had to un-learn all of the bad techniques, and replace them with mastery of good techniques. He was also amazed at what a difference learning the proper way to ski made, and how much easier it was to ski faster and more flexibly.

What I heard the Lord say at this point is that our response to doing the Father's will is much like that. Growing up in a broken, fallen world, learning from broken, fallen parents and other teachers, we have learned to do a lot of things, but we have learned bad ways of doing them, based on fear and selfish impulses. Because of that, when we finally hear what the Father's will is, it seems painful and hard, and counter to what we naturally want to do. But if we had learned from the beginning the proper way to respond, then we too would experience doing God's will as being nourishing and energizing. 

May we all come to experience what Jesus did, that our food is to do the will of Him who sent us, and to accomplish His work! And may the Father give us the courage to unlearn the old ways we have of living, and learn the new ways that Jesus came to teach us.