Then the question arises, "Is destiny the will of God?" And the answer is that in a sense the perfect will of God is that which the godly perceive in its fullness. If it were not so the hint in the Bible, "Thy will be done on earth as it is in heaven," would have no meaning. It does not say, "Thy will is being done on earth as it is in heaven." If this was so it would point to destiny, but it is the work of destiny and free will to come in connection in order to fulfill the will of God. It is free will and destiny, the two coming together, which bring about the will of God: but free will in its perfect state, in its fuller meaning.

A man arranges something in life, then conditions oppose it. In that case either the will, the will of God, is in that man, or the will is in the conditions. In the end, when one of these opposing forces will fail and one conquer, then the will of God is fulfilled; or when these two different aspects of will work harmoniously then the will of God is fulfilled. There is a Persian saying, "When two hearts become one they can remove mountains." In other words, when the will of one person and the free will of the other person become one, in other words harmonious, then they become a phenomenon; it works like magic. But when they do not work harmoniously then the will that is done is not the will of God, it is destiny.

I will give you a small example. A nice lady had a new maid. In order to entertain a friend, who was coming to visit her, she asked the maid to go and buy a beautiful bouquet of flowers. When the maid went out and asked the price of the bouquet at the florist's, she thought, "How extraordinary on the part of my lady to spend all that money on this. I wish she would have asked me something else to do." Instead of doing what the lady had asked her she went and bought some cheese sandwiches, and was delighted in her heart thinking, "When I bring these to my lady she will be very pleased." When the lady saw what the maid had bought she was horrified. While she had expected that her friend would be entertained with flowers, there were cheese sandwiches!

This will make you understand more fully that hint in the Bible, "Thy will be done on earth as it is in heaven." What man always does out of his will is not always divine will. The divine will is done when man is in contact with the divine Spirit in himself -- it is then that he begins to understand the meaning of the divine will.