God’s Will™

Good thoughts Alen, I think you hit the nail on the head when talking about making “wise decisions”. God has already given us His thoughts on most things – its called the Bible. If we apply Biblical principles to our decisions then we will be ‘in the will of God.’

You had me rofl on some of those comments Alen!

This is a hotly debated issue and I’m happy to be a wuss and stay on the sidelines to an extent. Still, I’m inclined to agree with your points. God’s word tells us his will.

Lol at some of the comments, but I think I disagree to some extent, Alen. I believe God does have specific plan and will for each Christian’s life – right down to their work and their life partner. =)

Alen, I have given your post some thought all day.

how does your post square with Rom 12:1-3? it talks about us evaluating the good and acceptable and perfect will of God?

also what about all the examples of Scripture in God calling people to specific acts of service (Moses, Jeremiah, Paul), people to marry (Isaac and Rebekah, Joseph and Mary), and to go to specific places (Abraham) ?

I agree that wisdom needs to prevail on what we do for breakfast etc, but I see so many Christians making poor decisions (re marriage, career, money matters) when His Word is ignored not to mention ignoring godly counsel.

I believe at times there needs to be some agony in prayer before a big decision.

some decisions I have had to make have involved years of waiting on God and I am so glad I didn’t act earlier.

prayer often reveals if we are serious about seeking God’s face and being willing to wait if we don’t have the clarity we need to make the decision.

Really good discussion…

@RoSeZ – if you are correct, how do you know your doing exactly that job which God specifically intended for you, and likewise how would you know that the person you’ve married is the specific one God had for you all along? Isn’t it a bit subjective? If it all works out then it must have been God’s will for my life? If it didn’t work out then it wasn’t God’s will?

@Rob – Amen. I agree with you about the necessity of prayer, patience and godly counsel – these are all Biblical principles we need to apply in making wise decisions.

About the fact that God does seem to have had specific jobs for specific people in Scripture – I would go so far as to say that God predestined certain people to do certain things – like Jeremiah, John the Baptist and the Apostle Paul, though I rather think that these are special cases involving people with parts to play in God’s plan of redemption. I don’t think the same can necessarily be said for every Believer.

I tend to agree with Alen’s general thesis that God does not have a specific will for our lives that we need to seek out, that is, God does not have one particular person he wants us to marry, or one particular place he wants us to use our gifts and if we don’t end up there, we’re outside of the will of God or we’ve missed God’s best.

If God did have a specific will just for me on all these kinds of matters – how would I know I was doing it? How would I know the person I married was the exact one that God intended and it wasn’t someone else? What if what I’m doing right now is not the exact thing God wills for me, but is somehow second, third, or tenth best? I think there is a big subjectivity problem with this kind of approach to will of God.

To me, the idea of a specific will, in the terms described by RoSeZ, leaves one in a terrible knot! (A bit like some of the Puritans who used to agonise over whether they were part of God’s elect or not!)

Excellent post.

This topic has been on my mind for many years and I have done much thinking and reading about it.

I was taught early on to look for ‘signs’ of being “in the will of God.” Things like having peace in my heart, circumstances, godly counsel, prayer, etc. This teaching caused me much grief and anxiety because making a big decision seemed like all these things had to be perfectly aligned in order for me to be “in the will of God.”

I understood God to have a ‘permissive will’ and a ‘perfect will’ and that my life had to be in God’s ‘perfect will’.

Much thinking was done and I decided that most of this teaching could not be true and there was little scriptural evidence to support it.

I stumbled across a book called Decision making and the Will of God by Garry Friesen, and it confirmed my thoughts and gave me a fresh understanding of this topic. Other sources confirmed this teaching and it much more solid biblical support.

As I now understand it, God has a will but He generally chooses not to reveal His specific will to individuals, there are notable exceptions in Scripture but they get fewer as the canon reaches completion. We are to live by faith and that means asking God for wisdom in decision making (James 1:5). We are led by the Spirit as we reach spiritual maturity in the Word (Romans 8:14) and we get wisdom from the examples and principles found in the word of God. With practice, it becomes ingrained in our thought and decision making process.
There is no waiting for ‘peace’, or for the circumstances to align perfectly, or for godly counsellors to agree on what we should do, but simply trusting God and taking Him at His word. Prayer is important in asking for wisdom in humility but not asking God to make His will for our lives known to us. That is not walking by faith. It is akin to asking God for a sign.
God’s will is fully revealed in the Bible, He does not continue to reveal it anew.

Wisdom is the principal thing, therefore get wisdom and with all thy getting, get understanding. Prov 4:7

@PJ,

Good point on the subjectivity. The opposing view tends to use the following phrases a lot:

“God spoke to my heart…”
“The Lord laid on my heart…”
“God has asked me to…”
“God gave me a verse…”
“The Lord told me to…”

All of these taken from a book I am currently reading by a Fundamentalist leader. It raises serious questions about what we believe about the cessation of direct revelation. It also casts into doubt the sufficiency of Scripture.

I like the way Gary Friessen (Decision Making & The Will Of God) explains God’s will as being both sovereign and moral. God’s sovereign will is that which we cannot fully comprehend. Personally I think His (sovereign) will does include specific details in our lives, but we obviously are not able to know all of what He is doing.

Christians feel frustrated when they try to live by God’s revealed (moral) will, while attempting to know what only God knows about specific details. They want to be “in the centre of God’s will” and are concerned with “missing” God’s will. That’s a good desire concerning God’s revealed, moral instructions. But how can anyone know the mind of God concerning that which He hasn’t revealed!

So rather than trying to interpret circumstances (“She winked at me, so she must be The One for me”) or seeking an “inner peace” (?!) or the “Lord’s voice” (i.e. extra-biblical revelation) for our decisions, we must *trust* in God’s sovereignty and obey His commands.

When we are not making a moral decision, we are responsible to use wisdom from the Word (as has been mentioned). i.e. do I marry Christian A or Christian B? Do I buy the Toyota or the Subaru? Use the Bible’s wisdom regarding marriage / stewardship / godly counsel / prayer / patience etc. Then choose.

This could be a long discussion…

funny, Steve: I began my comment earlier tonight, came back to finish it — and I see you’ve beaten me to it! :)

Sorry Ben. If it’s any consolation, PJ stole my thunder a bit with his comment because I started writing, got interupted and then went back to finish it. But that’s OK, I’m just glad there are others who see God’s will this way too.

It’s good to see we agree on this important topic. Jason’s comment re. direct revelation and the sufficiency of scripture is spot on. There are glaring inconsistencies with those who hold this view, and there are many who do. I will make sure my kids know this and the young people in our church grow up with a good understanding of this doctrine.
Asking if X decision is “God’s will for my life” may be the wrong question if we mean God’s specific will. A better question is “Is this the wisest, most biblically based decision I can make.”

@Ben…you buy the Toyota!

@ PJ,

I don’t think it has anything to do with whether or not it works out in the end, but I do believe that God has specific jobs, people, life experiences and a life partner that he deliberately has planned for our lives and are part of His perfect will for our lives.

I will admit straight up that I’m not very knowledgeable on this topic, but it seems to me in Ruth that God deliberately led Ruth to Boaz as her life partner despite a lot of opposition. If she had married a Moabite, would she have ended up in the lineage of Christ? I don’t think so. Also, in Genesis 24, as Abraham’s servant searches for a wife, Abraham promises that God will send His angel before him to take a particular wife for Isaac (vs 7) and Abraham’s servant knows in his prayer that there is an appointed one specifically for Isaac (vs12-14). Why would today be any different? Did God lose interest in planning the minute details of His will for a individual’s life?

From personal experience, my dad has told me many times that He believed that God led him very clearly to my Mum and told him that his ministry would suffer if he did not marry her. Today, without a doubt, she makes up an essential part of his ministry. If he had chosen another Christian girl who was interested, he would have missed out on my mum’s extraordinary organizing skills and many other ministry-perfect experience and talents she possesses.

So I conclude – from my limited perspective – that there is indeed a perfect will of God for the individual Christian. However, I do not believe you find it by sitting around wondering what it is. I’m inclined to agree with Steve on this – the question we should be asking ourselves is not, “Is this the will of God for my life?” but rather “Is this the wisest, most biblically based decision I can make?” The answer to this question, I believe, is how we find the will of God for our lives. The perfect will of God for our individual lives is not a single decision and you’re mystically in the will of God, but rather a journey of wise, biblically-based decisions.

If it doesn’t work out, it doesn’t mean it wasn’t the will of God for us. It just means that perhaps He is interested in making more of these lumps of clay we offer Him and is stretching and molding us through the difficulties and heartbreaks of failure and ‘it not working out’ to make us more like Him in the end and bring glory to Himself.

P.S. Hmmm…not sure which side of the argument I’m really arguing here… =P

Here’s an excellent series of messages on just this topic. Pretty much the same line of reasoning as Alan’s. Make sure you hear all 5 messages.
http://www.sermonaudio.com/sermoninfo.asp?SID=67101436235

Good discussion. One must be aware that in the Old Testament the canon of scripture was incomplete and so God used different ways to lead believers in that dispensation. The general principles are still the same, i.e faith, obedience to God’s word, wisdom, etc., but the specific method of God’s dealing with mankind was different to the current age of grace.
God still knows the minute details of our lives because of His omniscience/foreknowledge but He chooses not to reveal them to us, since we are to live by faith, not by sight.

I don’t think anyone is doubting that God leads us to make certain decisions in life, it is just the mechanics of that leading that is in question here. I would say that God leads us by teaching us wisdom through His word, which the indwelling Holy Spirit uses via His illuminating ministry to renew our minds gradually as we diligently study, so that when the moment of decision comes, we make the best decision.
The opposite view verges on mysticism, whereby Christians are led by feelings, urges, dreams, tongues, prophetic utterances, gross misinterpretation of the Bible, etc.

Christians can have a mixture of these views, leading to inconsistency and confusion.

Hopefully our life can be a journey of wise, biblically based decisions as Rosez put it, and if we make mistakes we can learn from them and grow.