Doing God's Will
Homily on the Scripture readings for January 18th. 2026
“Here I am, Lord; I come to do Your will.”
This is our Psalm response today — and after each verse of the Psalm reading we all repeated it, nearly a half a dozen times: “Here I am Lord; I come to do Your will”.
Let’s pause today, right now in the middle of Mass, and ask ourselves if this is our own motto in our lives. Is this what we say each day when we get up the morning?
“Hear I am Lord! I’m ready to do Your will today!”
How about after we’ve showered and dressed and made ourselves handsome or beautiful in the mirror and ate our breakfast and brushed our teeth and checked the weather forecast for today and the morning road conditions and while walking to the car or bus or subway we say":
“OK, I’m ready, Lord! I’m ready to do your will!”
Hmmmmm.
I don’t think so.
So why not? I wonder.
Why have our lives become so detached from thinking about God every morning when we wake up and about keeping God as our focus for our words and actions during our day?
The God who gives us our very breath and heartbeats throughout the day, and caused the grain to grow for our morning breakfast cereal and the sun to shine for our daily activities and darkness to fall to provide for us a quiet, peaceful, environment to sleep — sprinkling the night sky with billions of bright stars twinkling in the Heavens to remind us how vast the universe is that He created — and within which, we live in this special little corner of it we call Earth.
Yes, that God.
I’ll hazard an explanation as to this “why”.
Unlike the prophet Isaiah, who, in the first scripture reading heard God’s voice directly, we don’t hear God’s voice directly. Unlike John the Baptist who, in the second reading, sees Jesus standing right in front of him, we don’t see Jesus standing in front of us when we get up in the morning. (perhaps a good thing :-)
But just because we don’t hear God directly, or see Jesus when we awake each morning, does that excuse us for not thinking about God and and for not deciding and committing to make “His Will” our will for today? Of course not!
Perhaps we say an “Our Father” prayer in the morning as a gesture of good faith to God to start our day. We quickly get to the part “Thy will be done on Earth as it is in Heaven. Give us this day our daily bread…”
Let’s ask ourselves, when we pray this part are we asking God the Father to be a gigantic all powerful “Mighty God” seated in Heaven to command, by invincible cosmic force, that “His will be done on Earth”? A god who can command everything that he wants to be forced on everyone and everything on Earth? Of course not!
This becomes evident in the very next sentence when we pray “Give us this day our daily bread”’. What do you think the nourishment of that bread to feed us is to be used for? It’s for us to use to do God’s will.
When we pray that “Thy will be done on Earth”, it is we who are responsible for doing God’s will on Earth. Each one of us. In praying the prayer we are asking for God the Father to help us in this work, to guide our efforts, strengthen our hearts and bodies, to inspire us in what we say and do throughout our day so that we are doing God’s will with each step we take, each word we say, each action we do, each smile we present to others to share the love and honor we possess by being a child of God and being sent out into the world to do God’s will.
It’s a responsibility that we should not take lightly. Any of us.
It’s so very easy to ignore God in the morning when wake up in our comfortable homes. When, with almost no effort at all, we enjoy eating our breakfast and then set off to begin our day.
Let’s each decide, right now, to not ignore God in our morning routine.
How can we be God-aware and God-focused as we start our days? Here are a few suggestions:
Say a brief prayer of grace over your breakfast, thanking God for the food and asking Him to guide you in your activities during the day.
Think of the people you will be seeing that day and pray a prayer to God that He bless them today, and command angels to go to them ahead of you to assist you in doing God’s will for you and them today.
Reach out and touch a picture or statue of Jesus that you have, like you would of someone who is an ancestor or hero or inspiration of yours, and ask Jesus for His help and support during your day.
Throughout your day be aware that you are God’s agent in the world. You are His hands and feet, eyes and ears, to the people you interact with. For me I try always to say “God bless you” to anyone I conclude an interaction with - a store checkout clerk, a librarian, whomever. It brings God into their world for a moment, and often they respond with a smile and a hearty “thank you".
Lastly, keep aware of the virtues as you go about your day.
During some of the previous weeks scripture readings we heard St. Paul writing to various churches saying things like “just stop lying to one another” and “just stop complaining about one another”. It seems that human nature hasn’t changed much in 2000 years.
But as we’ve learned today, it is our responsibility to do God’s Will in the world. In our daily lives and interactions with work colleagues, family, friends and strangers.
So make the effort. Make the personal commitment to change your morning routine to include your simple sincere declaration to God:
“Lord, I come to do Your Will.”
Praise be to God.
All the scripture readings for today can be found here.
I was just saying to God this morning that it would be easier if I could actually see You, like if You were standing right here by me........like a person on earth would be.
And a couple of weeks ago I did not wake up to a comfy home, the hot water heater blew out...........I appreciate the days where nothing extreme like that happens. I do sometimes thank God in the morning for my hot water. But you are right, it is so easy to just wake up and start the day without God so thank you for the reminder! "Here I am Lord I'm ready to do your will".... that is a great way to start the day.
I truly appreciated this read, exactly what I needed to be reminded of today. Thank you!