“The will of God is not something you add to your life. It’s a course you choose. You either line yourself up with the Son of God…or you capitulate to the principle which governs the rest of the world.” ― Elisabeth Elliot

The apostle John wrote as a concluding reflection about Jesus in his gospel that “Jesus did many other things…if every one of them were written down, I suppose that even the whole world would not have room for the books that would be written.”  Perhaps the same could be said of the issue of the will of God?

Volume upon volume devoted to this particular subject sit somewhere on the dusty shelves in some private or public library; waiting expectantly for someone to uncover their blushing secrets to an anxious reader; testimony to the reality that this is a subject that continues to allure and perplex the minds of believers.

“God’s will.” Writes Rae Carson. “How many times have I heard someone declare their understanding of this thing I find so indefinable?” 

I understand her feelings.  Sometimes I feel the same way.  Sometimes it may feel that determining the will of God is a little like playing Marco Polo in the deep end of the pool; treading water while finding our way in the dark at the same time.  It can be a frustrating and deeply unsettling experience.  You ask yourself a thousand times, “Are my thoughts, feelings, and desires merely reflections of my own desires pinging back to me like sonar bouncing off a long-submerged shipwreck or are they confirmations to me of the Spirit’s will and the workings of Providence?”

What genuinely bothers me is if I have to make a decision, I don’t want that decision to simply to be a product of my own thoughts and ideas; mistakenly thinking my desires are God’s desires.  But neither do I want to be so foolish as to ignore the Spirit’s many confirmations to my spirit either.  I don’t wish to ignore my thoughts and desires because these may be the thoughts and desires he’s placed within me to help guide me to his desired end.

But in deference to what Carson says above; despite the riddle wrapped in an enigma that the will of God might seem to us, determining God’s will is not as difficult as we sometimes make it.  The prophet Micah diffuses us of the notion that God has somehow hidden his will from us.  That he acts like the man on the donkey who guides our direction by the extended carrot of his will, we ever plod toward but never reach.  No. God never makes a promise, he does not intend to keep.  We cannot make the claim or excuse ourselves from doing his will by claiming that we are ignorant of it since he has already revealed it in the pages of Scripture.  Our problem is not ignorance but willful disobedience. 

God says to us through the prophet, “He has shown you, O man, what is good.  And what does the Lord require of you?  To act justly and to love mercy and to walk humbly with your God.”  His will is not “indefinable” nor has it been hidden away, accessible only to those who like Chinese puzzle box connoisseurs are lucky and discerning enough to unlock its secrets.  No, God has not hidden his will.  Consistently, our problem lies not in the discerning of his will but in the doing of it!

So, at this point then, let me then deal with the obvious elephant in the room:

 How do you determine what the will of God is for your life?

The principles that I am about to lay before you can be applied in any situation, from the practical to the theoretical.  That is, whether you are seeking to discover if you should resign from your current job and find another; or seeking to discover what your spiritual gift is.  One has more to do the practical issues of life; the other something that is a bit more subjective.  So, if you are asking yourself: “Do I surrender to do full-time Christian service, or should I work in the secular arena? Should I marry the person I’m dating, or should I end it?  Does God have a preference as to the college I attend or is that decision up to me?”

Now understand, what I lay before you are only the first of many principles we could discuss, I will discuss others in subsequent blog posts, but whatever the question is before you, apply these biblical principles and the will of God will become evident to your mind and heart.

If you wish to know the will of God, you must first be surrendered to do the will of God!

I have often had people grace my office with the question of what they should do in this particular situation or that.  They come wanting to know what they should do, and yet often, I sensed in them an unwillingness through our conversation; an unwillingness to do whatever it is that God wanted.  These people often leave my office like the rich young ruler did with Jesus, they came asking for God to show them what they ought to do, but they went away unhappy with the answer they were given.

There is a question in this regard we ought to wrestle with, why should God tell you his will, if you are already predisposed not to do it?  In Matthew 13, the disciples questioned Jesus concerning why he spoke to the people in parables; why not just plainly tell them what you want them to know?  Why hide the truth within the story of a parable?  Jesus told them this, “The knowledge of the secrets of the kingdom of heaven has been given to you, but not to them.”  Why is that?  Why were the disciples accorded this privilege but those to whom Jesus was speaking, were not?  The answer? Because many of the people to whom Jesus was speaking had already made their minds up about him; they had to come to listen with the attitude that no matter what evidence Jesus presented as to his kingship, they were already predisposed not to believe it.  They had in a sense, come into the courtroom as a judge having already come to the verdict without hearing any of the evidence to the contrary.  And so, Jesus spoke to them in parables.

Again, you see the principle, why should God tell you what his will is if you’ve already made up your mind not to do it?

Ah, but those who come to God with an open, obedient and willful heart will find that determining his will a relatively easy exercise because their heart is open.  Paul taught us the same principle in Romans 12:1,2 when he urged us to “offer our bodies as living sacrifices…not conforming ourselves to the world but allowing ourselves to be transformed by the renewing of our minds.”  And if we do that “then you will be able to test and approve what God’s will is – his good, pleasing, and perfect will.”

Do you want to know his will?  Then first you must give yourself to the Lord and be able to say to him, “Whatever you want me to do…I will do!”  Trust me, God will reveal his will to those with such a pure, and humble heart.

Develop a Spiritual Sensitivity to God’s Providential Workings in your Life.

When I was in seminary working for the now-defunct Airborne Express as a courier I always had Christian radio on in my truck.  And every day, at a certain time of the day, I would listen to a segment by David Maines, a Christian commentator who used to encourage his listeners daily with what he called “God Sightings”.  What he meant by that was if you were sensitive enough spiritually, you’d be able to see God working in your midst, in a thousand different, small, wonderful, yet imperceptible ways.  These he would call “God sightings” and during his program, he would give testimony and even encourage his listeners to call in with their own personal “God sightings” and tell how those sightings affected their lives.  I looked forward to listening to that portion of my day on the radio.  It was always so hopeful and encouraging to hear how God was showing up in the lives of others.

Of course, what Maines meant by “God sightings” is really the Biblical reality of what we know in Scripture as, divine Providence.  If you journey through the Bible you’ll discover this reality throughout its pages, that nothing comes to us purely by chance, but by God’s fatherly hand whether it is good, and even what we consider as bad. Solomon, in light of this reality, encourages us with this truth in Ecclesiastes 7:14, he writes, “When times are good, be happy; but when times are bad, consider:  God has made the one as well as the other.”  This is very close in meaning to the one verse on Providence every Christian knows and quotes verbatim: “All things work together for good to those who love God and are called according to his purpose.”  What is that?  That’s providence.

Let me define it specifically, Providence is God’s almighty power to uphold and sustain everything he has made so that all things come to us not by chance but by his Fatherly hand.

Now, of course, we live in a world where very few accept this as a reality.  They instead believe in coincidence and random chance. We see this teaching evident in our schools when our children are taught evolutionary theory.  For the reality is evolutionary theory could not exist unless chance existed.  From the supposed “Big Bang” which started it all to the existence of the human beings on the planet.

From an evolutionary point of view, space + time + chance = existence.

But does chance really exist or is it something we’ve invented to explain the randomness of life?

• If you believe that chance exists, then what you are really saying is that God is not really sovereign.

R.C. Sproul refers to this as “the Maverick Molecule”.  That is, not only does chance not exist but there is not one molecule of existence that’s running around outside of God’s control.  For if you allow for a maverick molecule then you are allowing for the possibility of a God who is not sovereign.   And a God who is not sovereign is not a God at all.  So, if there is one molecule running loose outside of God’s sovereign will then there is not the slightest confidence that you can have that any promise that God has made about your future will ever come to pass.  I come to this conclusion then…

• Chance does not exist because if it did, God would merely be a Spectator.

He would be a God without any power to change the world; without any power to change your world.  But instead, he would be a God wringing his hands and hoping that things turn out the way he wants them to, without having any authority or power to guide them.  God would be just as helpless as you and I are to the winds of time and circumstance.  But this is not who God is!    And we ought to be very grateful that he is not, for we are assured in the Scriptures that we not at the mercy of blind deterministic forces like chance or luck, but that your life is held in the hand of a kind and loving providence who only desires to do what is good.  So when the hard times come, know this, it’s not because you are unlucky; God has allowed it to teach you the lesson of human destiny:  God is in control of life, and you are not the captain of it; for this is to an illusion.

So how can knowing and accepting the reality of Providence help you in determining what the will of God is for your life? 

Well, very simply, if God has a particular path for you to take, then he will orchestrate events, people, happenstances, and even the decisions of others in close proximity to your life.  And if these things didn’t happen by chance, then they exist for a providential and purposeful reason.  They are signposts pointing you in the direction you ought to take; discernable only to those whose heart is humble and pure enough to see them.  Through prayer, the evidence of the conscience, the teaching of the Word of God and the work of the Spirit speaking to your spirit, it is then possible to see what is imperceptible to others and to discern with confidence, the whispers of his will.

The only question remains…once you know his will…are you willing to do it?