Cedric Pisegna - God's Will (01/22/2026)
Father Cedric reflects on Jesus' prayer in the Garden of Gethsemane from Luke 22, where He surrenders with «Not my will, but yours be done,» even in agony, receiving angelic strength. He explains that God’s will is not the cause of suffering or death but redeems them, shaping us into Christ’s image. The message is that surrendering to God’s gracious, general will—for salvation, knowing Him personally, sanctification, morality, and fruitfulness—brings peace, joy, and lifting up, while discernment through prayer, information, counsel, and feelings guides specific choices.
Introduction and Scripture
Hi, I’m Father Cedric Pisegna, the host of «Live with Passion». So glad that you joined us, talking about God’s will in this episode. And the series is called, «Be Lifted Up». This comes from the Gospel of Luke, chapter 22, «Jesus went, as was his custom, to the Mount of Olives, and his disciples followed him. And when he came to the place, he said to them, 'Pray that you may not enter into temptation, ' and he withdrew from them about a stone’s throw. He knelt down and he prayed, 'Father, if you are willing, remove this cup from me. Nevertheless, not my will, your will be done.' And there appeared to him an angel from heaven, strengthening him. Being in agony, he prayed more earnestly and his sweat became like great drops of blood falling upon the ground».
Common Questions About God’s Will
Every once in a while, I get emails and letters from people and they ask me questions about their life, such as, «Is God calling me to the priesthood? How do I know? How do I know if this is the right person that I should marry? Should I buy this house or look for another one? Is this the right career path for me? Is my cancer or arthritis God’s will? My parents just died. Was that God’s will»? Let me say a few things right away. If you have a disease like arthritis or cancer, everybody gets sick with something, I don’t believe it’s God’s will. God didn’t inflict you with that type stuff. But what God does is he works through it to transform us. In one of my other episodes, I talked about how God is molding us and shaping us through the real life experiences that we go through into the very image of Jesus.
And unfortunately, suffering is part of that. We don’t get suffering because God inflicts us with it. We get suffering because we’re human. We’ve been born into a fallen and futile race. There are many blessings, of course, but in addition, the bottom line is that we are all going to pass away and we all have to deal with these things. What God does is he works in it to mold us and shape us into the life of Christ, into the image of Christ. Did God take your parents? I’m sure God received your parents, but he didn’t kill your parents. It’s evil, it’s sin, it’s our fall from God that causes death. Therefore, the question, «Did God take my parents? Was that God’s will»? No, it wasn’t God’s will that your parents died, or your spouse died, or anybody else died. What God does is he redeems that situation and raises us up. He redeems us by promising us a resurrection.
The Importance of God’s Will
We have to understand that God’s will is something crucial in the Scriptures. We pray for God’s will every day, and I want to try to explain it. It’s such a huge area. I only have one episode on it, but. For example, during the «Our Father, » that beautiful prayer that Jesus gave us, we pray, «Thy kingdom come, thy will be done». Oftentimes if you’ve ever heard people pray the «Our Father» in a community setting, in a worship setting, oftentimes that prayer, it’s just rattled off. We all know it so well, you know? «Thy kingdom come, thy will be done, » and we’re not even thinking about it. Jesus sweat blood praying for God’s will to be done. He was intensely, significantly, severely committed to doing God’s will. And we all want God’s will.
We pray for it every day, of course, but sometimes we don’t really think about what it really is. I’ll try to explain. Jesus said his food was to do God’s will, and whoever did God’s will was his brother, his sister, and his mother, a part of his family. I have in my room a lithograph of the Garden of Gethsemane. Somebody stitched it for me. And it shows Jesus kneeling in prayer, sweating blood. And he was in a struggle between heaven and earth, locked in a struggle between his will and God’s will. His will was not to suffer, just like all of us. None of us want to suffer. None of us want to have to go through anything like that. His will was probably to go back to Galilee and fish with his friends. But he sensed that God’s will was to go to the cross to redeem the human race. And notice what happened when he was praying. An angel was sent to strengthen him.
Strength in Doing God’s Will
When you do God’s will, there’s a lifting up, and that’s this series. There is a strength. There’s a power that God gives us to do his will, and God helped Jesus. Yes, he sweat blood and it was hard, but he gave him the power to be able to stand, to undergo the trial, and to go through the crucifixion, even though it was intolerable pain. I think about the saints in the Catholic Church. Every saint that you know of, perhaps you have a favorite saint if you are Catholic, every saint, that was their delight was to do the will of God. I think about Saint Catherine of Siena, for example. She said, «Be the person God is calling you to be and you’ll set the world on fire». That’s realizing your potential, doing God’s will. That’s part of God’s will.
Saint Alphonsus Liguori, the founder of the Redemptorists, said this about God’s will, «The greatest glory we can give to God is to do God’s will in everything». What is God’s will? Well, it depends what we’re talking about. It has to do with morality. It has to do with your behavior. It has to do with your future, what you’re involved in, your relationships. God’s will is like this thread that is woven into every aspect of our life, and it takes some discernment. It takes some understanding to try to understand what God’s will is.
God’s Gracious Will
I want to talk about God’s will in a few different areas, but first of all, I wanted to say that God’s will, and that’s his wish for us, his desire for us, his plan for us, his will for us, and it’s very gracious. It says in the Prophet Jeremiah, Jeremiah 29:11, «'I know the plans I have for you, ' says the Lord, 'plans of a welfare, not woe.'»
God’s will for us is gracious. A lot of times people think, «Well, if I give my life to Jesus, he’s gonna make me go down the Amazon River BODY as a missionary, and speak to the natives, and have to deal with the piranha in the water, and all that». No, God’s will is gracious. He’ll be kind to you. He wants the best for you. He wants a welfare for you. Your future, it’ll be blessed. There is no greater joy than being smack dab in the middle of God’s will. I cannot tell you the joy and the peace of being in the middle of God’s will. I didn’t always know what it was, but as you walk in it, there’s this harmony and tranquility of being in God’s will. And if you don’t feel like you’re in the middle of God’s will right now, let me tell you this.
I have a GPS system in my car and it tells you the best way to go, in terms of how… the fastest way, the less traffic, that kind of a thing. If you make a wrong turn, it’ll recalculate, and from wherever you are, then it’ll give you the route. It’ll move you in a different direction depending on the mistakes that you made on the way there. Same way with God’s will. You make some mistakes going forward in your life. You commit some sins. You go the wrong way. You leave the church. You leave God. You just come back from right where you are. God has a will. God’s plan B is better than his plan A, and I hope you can understand that. I’m not in God’s plan B. I’m God’s plan X, Y, and Z because I’ve made so many wrong turns of my life.
But God is always there to take you right where you are and move you forward, and I hope you understand that. God will take you right where you are and move you forward. Simply pray that prayer. It’s a great prayer of surrender. That’s what Jesus was doing in the Garden of Gethsemane, «Father, your will, not my will be done». And as I said, all the Catholic saints have been dedicated and surrendered to God’s will. And as a disciple of Jesus, we must be the same.
God’s General Will for All
God’s will, first of all, general will for all people, and it’s revealed in the Scriptures. God wills all people to be saved and to come to the knowledge of truth. You can be recalculated and set upon the right way right now. God wills for you to be saved. Your life isn’t a travesty.
The things that you’ve done wrong haven’t cut you off from God completely. You are not beyond redemption. The time is now to go forward. If you’ve been going to church, you’re a believer, you love the Lord, stay on that path. God is at work in your life. He wills you to be saved. And when I talk about being saved, what do I mean by that? It means that you have this assurance that you belong to God. You’re God’s possession. God is your Father. You know that he loves you and you know that he wants you to go to heaven. That was from the Catholic catechism years ago. The will of God is for us to know him and to live with him, to do his will forever and ever.
Now, I have to tell you, heaven is our goal. As a disciple of Christ, we can’t forget that. We live here on earth and we’re immersed in this experience, but it’s temporary. It’s fleeting. Time is going by very quickly. We’re only here for a little while to learn to do God’s will, to be committed to God’s will so that God can see that you’re serious about a relationship with him. But God’s will primarily is to take us home to heaven. Second of all, God wills for us to know him, to know him in a personal way. This is the new covenant. I talked about that in one of my other episodes. If you’re Catholic, we celebrate that at every Mass, the blood of the new covenant, shed for the many. And the new covenant is that we would be forgiven, that God would write his ways, his laws in our hearts, and that everyone from the least tоучу to the greatest would know God.
When I talk about knowing God, you have a relationship with him in the Holy Spirit through the Lord Jesus Christ. Jesus becomes your best friend, the Holy Spirit becomes your soul mate, and you know God as your Abba, your Father. You have a relationship with the Trinity. I proclaim that in one of the other episodes. And when you know God, God lifts you up no matter what you’re going through. And that’s this series that we’re proclaiming to you right now, «Be Lifted Up». And the hope of heaven, knowing God in a personal way, that’s being lifted up. And then of course, the will of God is our sanctification. That’s right from the Bible. I believe it’s 1 Thessalonians. The will of God is our sanctification.
When I talk about sanctification, that means being made holy. So what is God’s will for our life? That we be saved, we know God in a personal way, and that we be transformed. And I’ve talked about that in other episodes, the transformation of our heart, the sanctification, the purification, the being made holy. That’s the will of God for us, that we become the very image of Jesus Christ. And then, of course, all we have to do is look at the Ten Commandments. We’re talking about morality now, and the will of God, and being sanctified. The Ten Commandments that were given to us, you might be thinking, «Well, isn’t that the Old Testament? Isn’t that, you know, the beginning of the Bible? We’re in the New Testament».
Well, Jesus said that we’re building upon the old, that the Old Testament wouldn’t pass away. The law and the prophets are still valid. And the Ten Commandments that God gave us, «Honor your mother and father. Honor the Sabbath. Don’t lie. Don’t kill, » I mean, these are common sense things. It’s God’s will. God wrote that with his own handwriting for us in stone. And the Ten Commandments shouldn’t be taken out of schools. They shouldn’t be taken out of our government because they are God’s will and they’re God’s will for us. If you want to know God’s will, follow the Ten Commandments, of course. God’s general will for us, and this is very simple, salvation, eternal life in heaven, God’s will for all people. This is right from the Scriptures. Knowing God in a personal way.
That’s the new covenant. Be a moral person. That’s right from the Scriptures. Follow the Ten Commandments. And then of course, be fruitful. Realize your potential. I think about one of the parables that Jesus gave us. It was the parable the talents. If you remember, three people got different amounts of talents. One got five, one got a couple, one got one. And the talents have to do with the potential that God has put into us, the giftedness that we have. And God wants us to produce, at least give God interest about what God has given you. That’s his will. Remember the first commandment in the Bible, «Be fruitful and multiply».
And when I talk about fruitfulness, that means that you develop your relationship with God, that you become a person of character and moral integrity, and that you make a difference in other people’s lives, that you realize your potential. You become all that you can be. You live with passion. That is God’s will for us.
God’s Specific Will and Discernment
Jesus sweat blood trying to do God’s will. He gave us that beautiful prayer, the «Our Father» that most of you pray every day, sometimes many times a day as religious, we pray it, «Father, your will be done and your kingdom come». That’s his general will for us. What about a specific will? I’ve listed some of that in the beginning. How do you know if this is the right person to marry what about this job what does God want me to do.
Well, let’s talk a little bit about that should I be married or single life or religious life, what about I travel or should I go on vacation. You know the the small things of life. The everyday matters of life, what’s God’s will and all that in the old Testament something significant happened. Remember after the Hebrews were taken out of slavery in Egypt. The wandering through the desert and that’s a metaphor for our pilgrimage for our journey. They were journeying. And they weren’t quite sure where they were going. They thought they were going toward. The Promised Land, but they weren’t sure what that was. Or where it was and they didn’t know how to get there. And Moses of course was leading them. But Moses needed direction from God too.
And if you remember as they were going through the desert there was a cloud by day. And a pillar of fire by night God literally showed them the way. By appearing to them in the shekinah cloud. And by a pillar of fire at night can you imagine wouldn’t it be great. If in all of our decisions and all of our choices. We had this cloud during the day that we could follow and when the cloud moved they moved when the clouds stay put they stayed put and eventually they were led to the Promised Land and wouldn’t it be great at night with all the darkness. That if we could have this pillar of fire to lead us. But, God isn’t so clear he leaves a lot to our own common sense and hopefully as we develop our heart and as we follow Christ we gain wisdom. We gain common sense, we gain understanding and discernment.
And God trusts us with that. You have it. You have wisdom. Pray for deeper wisdom. This is the way that God works not so clear. But he relies upon us to understand. When I talk about God’s will people want to know. Should I stay married. What should I do about my mom and dad, who are old. Should I have an operation or just stay on medication. The beautiful thing about God’s will is there is room for us to choose. And what I mean by that is. Yes, God has a specific will for our life and it’s a goodwill, and as I said he has a beautiful plan for our life right from Jeremiah plan for our welfare, not our woe. But within that plan, there’s room, room for our choices, room for what we want. He has our best will in mind, but he allows us to make it and he blesses the choices that we have as long as we’re seeking his will.
And that’s what you have to understand. We may not get his exact will carved in stone, or the pillar of fire, or the cloud in the day, but he gives us room to make our own choices. Because as I said, we’re growing in wisdom. We’re trying to understand. This is called discernment.
How to Discern God’s Will
And I want to try to help you to discern God’s will really quickly. How do you do it in whatever choice you have that you’re confronted with? Because some of you have choices that are very significant and very specific, and you’re praying for God’s will to be done, and God doesn’t seem to be giving you an answer. Discernment, that’s called. I had to discern when I became a priest and a religious. It’s called novitiate, a whole year of discerning.
And what happened was, number one, information gathering or gather intel. I lived with a Passionist community. I met the men. I saw the way they lived. And that gave me information about this way of life so that I was able to make a good decision. When it comes to a decision in your life, you have to gather information. And information gathering is so important. I heard an air traffic controller say, «Good information leads to good decisions». That’s the first thing when you’re making a decision, wanting to know what God’s will is. Look at whatever decision you’re about to make, gather information about it, and then I would say acknowledge God in all your ways. That’s right from Proverbs. Bring God into your decision. Pray, «Father, what is your will? I have many paths that I can take here and I’m not sure».
The year of novitiate was a year of praying for God’s will. I wasn’t sure. I wasn’t sure what priesthood was gonna be like. Wasn’t sure what becoming a Passionist was gonna be like. I gathered as much information as I could, but then I had to make a decision. But I acknowledged God. I brought him into prayer every day. But in the little decisions, you do that also. Acknowledge God in all your ways and he will guide your steps. Really important. Number three, talk to others. That’s part of the discernment process. I had a spiritual director. That’s like a consular. Talk to a trusted friend. Talk to them about what you are thinking about about your decision, even if you’re buying something.
And then pay attention to your own feelings. I’m talking about Saint Ignatius of Loyola in his discernment method, how to make a choice according to God’s will. Really important. I remember when I was in novitiate for that year, I had a lot of conflicting feelings, but the overall feeling that I had was peace, and harmony, and inner tranquility. And that was telling me that God was working through my feelings. Stores will do this all the time. They’ll try to manipulate your feelings. They’ll say, «50% Off Sale, » you know, and your feelings get all manipulated and you want to buy it. And I always tell people, «Take your time in making your decisions».
God’s strength, God’s hope, I believe it will be the right decision. What if you make the wrong one? God will find you. He’ll help you. He has a will for everything that you do in your life. Include him. Do some information gathering. Spend a little time talking about it. Look at your feelings. Give it a little bit of time. Make a decision.
Thomas Merton’s Prayer
Wanted to share with you a prayer that really touched me. It was from Thomas Merton, who was a Trappist monk dedicated to prayer, trying to discern God’s will in his life. And he was very honest in this and very vulnerable, and this is what he said. His prayer to God, «My Lord and God, I have no idea where I’m going. I don’t see the road ahead of me.
And the fact that I think that I’m following your will doesn’t actually mean that I am following your will. But I believe that my desire to please you does in fact please you. And I know that you will lead me by the right road, even though I know nothing about where I’m going. Therefore, I will trust you always. I will not fear because you are ever with me and you will not leave me to face my perils alone». Even though we don’t know the way, Jesus is the way, and he’s gonna help you. God’s will was Jesus’s food. God’s will was the desire of the saints. And I pray that you will follow God’s general will and his specific will for you the best that you can. And as you do, I know that you will be blessed and fruitful because God’s gracious will for you is for your welfare, and not your woe. Don’t just live, live with passion.