Knowing God's Will
How often do we here someone ask or say that they want to know God's will for his/her life? How many books, sermons, lectures, studies are aimed at enabling people to know what God has in store for them? For everything from what church to attend, what career to pursue, who to marry, where to live, down to mundane matters- red car or blue, we want to know God's will. Call it the curmudgeon in me, but I confess that I've become more and more skeptical of the enterprise we know of as discovering the Lord's will. Okay preacher, but what about Jeremiah 29:11, about plans for wholeness and not to harm? That was spoken to the weeping prophet as Jerusalem was being laid waste by the Babylonians and was a promise to restore the city and land, a promise that was indeed fulfilled beginning in 539 BC.
My own ruminations on this lead me to think that there is much less in scripture about this topic than what we think or wish. More and more I find myself thinking that God's plan or purpose for our lives is known in retrospect, in hindsight than in foresight. Scripture is replete with examples of people who obeyed the Lord even though they did not know where He was leading them. In fact, faith itself is stepping out when we don't know everything, how things will work. As one minister put it recently, we can know the heart of God even if we seldom know the mind of God.
So, preacher, does God have a plan for each person's life? I would say absolutely yes. At rock bottom God wills that all people come to faith and repentance through Jesus Christ. Beyond that, I still would say that God has a plan, but that it is seldom our place to know beforehand what it is. The plan is not determinitive. We can't look at "God's Plan" for our lives just as others seek out wisdom from psychics, "spiritual advisors" and the like that we see alongside the road. For those who find themselves in the happy place of truly living in His will the result is an incredible joy and peace, but God seldom places billboards in our path telling us what to do. My own opinion is that relatively few people truly find themselves truly in God's will, living his plan for their lives. If such were true the numbers of people who seek fulfillment in everything but the Almight wouldn't so high. If such were true the world wouldn't be so full of needless violence, hatred, murder, and the like.
Again preacher, what should I do??? Instead of seeking to know the mind of God, of trying to read the spiritual "tea leaves," just try to know God. In prayer, in reading of scripture, in worship, etc. all those things that we have known as means of grace, we come to know our maker better. As we simply know him better, God guides us where he wants us to be without our even knowing it.
My own ruminations on this lead me to think that there is much less in scripture about this topic than what we think or wish. More and more I find myself thinking that God's plan or purpose for our lives is known in retrospect, in hindsight than in foresight. Scripture is replete with examples of people who obeyed the Lord even though they did not know where He was leading them. In fact, faith itself is stepping out when we don't know everything, how things will work. As one minister put it recently, we can know the heart of God even if we seldom know the mind of God.
So, preacher, does God have a plan for each person's life? I would say absolutely yes. At rock bottom God wills that all people come to faith and repentance through Jesus Christ. Beyond that, I still would say that God has a plan, but that it is seldom our place to know beforehand what it is. The plan is not determinitive. We can't look at "God's Plan" for our lives just as others seek out wisdom from psychics, "spiritual advisors" and the like that we see alongside the road. For those who find themselves in the happy place of truly living in His will the result is an incredible joy and peace, but God seldom places billboards in our path telling us what to do. My own opinion is that relatively few people truly find themselves truly in God's will, living his plan for their lives. If such were true the numbers of people who seek fulfillment in everything but the Almight wouldn't so high. If such were true the world wouldn't be so full of needless violence, hatred, murder, and the like.
Again preacher, what should I do??? Instead of seeking to know the mind of God, of trying to read the spiritual "tea leaves," just try to know God. In prayer, in reading of scripture, in worship, etc. all those things that we have known as means of grace, we come to know our maker better. As we simply know him better, God guides us where he wants us to be without our even knowing it.
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