Church Voices

One of the most important questions a Christian can ask his or herself is “What is God’s will for me?” The number of books written on this subject by popular Christian authors such as Charles Swindoll and John MacArther reveals that the many lay Christians are either asking or interested in the question.¹ The vast majority of self-help style books that fill Christian bookstores to the brim, I’d be willing to bet, are likely to have a chapter devoted to the question. I want to suggest that the answer to the question is painfully clear. “If it is so clear”, you might ask, “then why do so many Christians find themselves at a loss as to how to answer it?” Part of what makes the question so knotty is its ambiguity. What exactly is the question? What do we mean by “God’s will” or “the will of God” when we ask it of our lives?

I. What Do We Mean by “God’s Will”?
Typically God’s will has been analyzed in terms of his sovereignty. When we speak of God’s sovereignty, we’re speaking about God’s control over all of creation. The scope of God’s sovereignty can be understood by noting that there is nothing that happens that isn’t either caused by God or permitted by God. The former is referred to as God’s purposive will, where God causally brings about some event for some purpose. Miracles are examples of what happens according to God’s purposive will. The latter is referred to as God’s permissive will, where God permits but doesn’t directly cause events to occur. Apart from special intervention by God, everything else simply happens according to God’s permissive will.²

But there is a problem. When we ask the question “What is God’s will for me?”, we’re obviously not referring to God’s purposive or his permissive will, for literally anything could fall into one of those two categories. The question of what is God’s will for us would be utterly trivialized. “Whatever happens is God’s will”, you could say. But surely that is not what we’re asking. Moreover, to say “whatever happens is God’s will” is simply false in other contexts. For example, it is not God’s will that people should go to Hell (2 Pet 3:9), or that people should sin. While it is true that God might permit these things to occur, God hardly desires them to. So we see here a subset of God’s permissive will—things that God permits but does not desire to occur—which is what we could call God’s desirous will. God’s desirous will is that which God both permits and desires to happen. This seems to capture what we want to ask. Our question, then, is “What is God’s desirous will for me?” What does God desire me to do in a given situation (say, when I’m faced with a decision of paramount importance)? Before answering that question, let’s put further clarity into the concept of God’s desirous will by describing what it is not.

II. What God’s Desirous Will Is Not
First, God’s desirous will is not fated or predetermined. As a question about what we should choose when faced with decisions, it presupposes genuine free will. Nevertheless, many seem to treat the idea of God’s will as a specific, predetermined path they need to follow. Perhaps the idea is that although we are free, the choices we make need to conform to a specific plan God has in mind for us if we are to be in his will, sort of like following the Yellow Brick Road.

The problem with this is that if we deviate just once from this path, our course of history forever changes. Are we forever outside of God’s will just because we made one wrong decision? Moreover, the problem is confounded once we realize that our poor decisions would not only alter our path, but the paths of the innumerable amount of people our path crosses thereafter! Is their ideal path forever changed for no fault of their own? For example, consider marriage in this context. If it is possible to marry outside of God’s will, then before long everyone would be marrying outside of God’s will. All it takes is a single person marrying outside of God’s will to ruin it for everybody. For if two people marry outside of God’s will, the two people they were supposed to marry are now forced to marry outside of God’s will, ad infinitum. So long as people have genuine freedom, I don’t see how this is avoidable.

“Maybe God redirects our path to the right one once we veer off course,” you might object. But if this is true, then God has an infinite about of improvising to do. And if we have free will, then nothing guarantees God’s improvising will be successful should we decide not to heed his redirection. But even if everyone always did respond favorably to God’s redirection, his will for us would never be quite right. We’d never be able to make up for what was lost when we were astray. Thus, God’s will for us, maybe for no fault of our own, would only be partially achievable. So much for God’s will!

Another problem with the idea that God’s will is set in future stone is that it makes it unknowable and distracts us from our present responsibilities. The future is known only to God and is for us to trust him with in the present. Scripture warns against placing stock in or worrying about the future (Matt 6.34; Jas 4.13-17). As we’ll see later, God’s will has far less to do with the future than it does with what we do in the present.

Second, God’s desirous will is not mysterious. God’s will is sometimes taken to be the ultimate enigma in a Christian’s life. In fact, I was recently discouraged from teaching on this topic by a fellow Christian because “it’s just too complicated.” Like a puzzle left for us to piece together, God’s will is sometimes taken to be so mysterious that if completed, it would likely be a picture of a puzzle taken apart. But again, ask yourself why, as perhaps the most important thing a Christian could know, God would leave it to us to figure out with our own desperate ingenuity? Why would God hide something so significant from us? “Because that would occasion much prayer and supplication on our behalf to figure it out,” you might say. But as Dallas Willard has pointed out, it is unlikely that “[God would] delight in having to always explain what his will is.” Instead, “he enjoys it when we understand and act upon his will.”³ While prayer and the like are indispensable to the Christian life, there is a certain maturity God honors when it comes to making decisions. The Lord even compares such behavior as similar to that of a horse or mule!

I will instruct you and teach you in the way you should go;
I will counsel you and watch over you.
Do not be like the horse or the mule,
which have no understanding
but must be controlled by bit and bridle
or they will not come to you.
[Ps. 32:8-9]

A deeper relationship would be one without mystery and immature dependence. Willard illustrates:

When in the manner appropriate to the people involved, two become one, they identify with one another, expanding their selves and their world. The beloved, who both loves and is loved, does not want to order the lover about; instead, the beloved desires that the lover understand what is needed so that no orders are necessary.⁴

Furthermore, if God’s will is mysterious, this would seem to give fuel to the so-called problem of divine hiddenness. Regrouping from defeat over the problem of evil, many atheists are now arguing that if God did exist, he would make himself and his intentions more obvious.⁵ Consigning such a significant part of a Christian’s relationship to God to the hidden and mysterious would be conceding too much. Mysterious and hidden might accurately describe some aspects of God, but not God’s desirous will. It is on this issue Christianity finds itself so unique among other world religions. Whereas other religions depict stories of man’s cumbersome search for God, Christianity is a story about God’s search for man, promising to reveal himself if only we seek and ask (Matt 7:7; Luke 11:9).

Third and most important, God’s desirous will is not person-relative. By “person relative” I mean “that ideal, detailed life-plan which God has uniquely designed for each believer.”⁶ No doubt the most pervasive assumption about God’s will, it is sometimes called his “individual will”, “perfect will,” “personal will”, “the nucleus of God’s will” and “the center of God’s will.” In his book God’s Will for Your Life, Gary Maeder describes this position nicely:

I believe that God has an individual will for all Christians on some matters. For me that would clearly seem to include my involvement with the deputation program of the First Presbyterian Church of Hollywood, my seminary studies, my marriage, my legal career and our children. Quite possibly it include much more. In each of these areas, discovering and carrying out God’s will for my life meant seeking and making the specific choice He desired for me. For other believers, God’s individual will would involve different decisions and events.⁷

Despite its popularity, this view is misguided and harmful for a number of reasons. First, it is not found in scripture either implicitly or explicitly. In Decision Making and the Will of God, Gary Friesen has surveyed the Bible and found that of the four different ways the phrase “will of God” is used, none refer to this conception of God’s will.⁸ Second, it is a huge distraction. Instead of focusing on obeying God in the present, the idea often promotes anxiety about the future. When faced with a decision, figuring out God’s will becomes similar to diffusing a bomb—we get only one chance to get it right! Third, the idea easily leads to false testimonies and/or projected spirituality. Obsessing over “a sign from God” (a.k.a., fleecing. See Judges 6:36-40), many Christians end up projecting God into mundane affairs such as hunches, impressions, circumstances, indigestion, the wind, etc., which is downright silly. Fourth, this view can engender false guilt and doubt by leading Christians to think they’re spiritually deficient by not knowing what do to. Finally, this view is simply narcissistic at its core. It’s the product of a culture which puts “me” at the center of everything—in this case, even God’s will! After considering this view in his book Rethinking the Will of God, Frank Viola concludes:

If you read each [way the phrase “will of God” is used in the Bible] in context, you will discover that the phrase the will of God never refers to a specific, individual plan that differs from Christian to Christian. To put it another way, the doctrine that God has a detailed plan for your life which encompasses every decision you will ever make has no biblical basis…is unlivable…encourages immaturity…engenders false guilt, fear, doubt, and confusion…[and] is inconsistent with God’s relationship with His people.⁹

Similarly, Friesen:

The major point is this: God does not have an ideal, detailed-life plan uniquely designed for each believer that must be discovered in order to make correct decisions. The concept of an “individual will of God” cannot be established by reason, experience, biblical example or biblical teaching.¹⁰

So the initial question is wrongheaded. Maybe this is why so many Christians have chased rabbits in their attempt to answer it. Instead of asking “What is God’s desirous will for me?”, we should instead be asking simply “What is God’s desirous will?”, for the latter applies to us all.

III. What God’s Desirous Will Is
The answer is scandalously simple and couldn’t be more clearly enunciated in scripture. Consider what is sometimes referred to as the summary of the Old Testament:

No, O people, the Lord has told you what is good,
and this is what he requires of you:
to do what is right, to love mercy,
and to walk humbly with your God.
[Micha 6:8]

More poignantly in the New Testament, Paul writes

Finally, brothers, we instructed you how to live in order to please God, as in fact you are living. Now we ask you and urge you in the Lord Jesus to do this more and more. For you know what instructions we gave you by the authority of the Lord Jesus.

It is God’s will that you should be sanctified: that you should avoid sexual immorality; that each of you should learn to control his own body in a way that is holy and honorable, not in passionate lust like the heathen, who do not know God; and that in this matter no one should wrong his brother or take advantage of him….For God did not call us to be impure, but to live a holy life. Therefore, he who rejects this instruction does not reject man but God, who gives you his Holy Spirit. [1 Thes. 4:1-8, my italics]

Be very careful, then, how you live—not as unwise but as wise, making the most of every opportunity, because the days are evil. Therefore do not be foolish, but understand what the Lord’s will is. [Eph. 5.15-17]

One could multiply examples of similar passages, but a common thread running through them all is that of personal holiness. God’s desirous will for you is simply to be holy. I have heard someone object to this, exclaiming “if that’s all God’s will is, then literally anything you could do could be God’s will for you!” Ah, but that’s is precisely the point! The picture this paints for the believer is one of sheer liberty (Rom. 14; 1 Cor. 8-9; Gal. 5)! Jerry Sittser appreciates this:

This perspective on the will of God gives us astonishing freedom. If we seek first God’s kingdom and righteousness, which is the will of God for our lives, then whatever choices we make concerning the future become the will of God for our lives. There are many pathways we could follow, many options we could pursue. As long as we are seeking God, all of them can be God’s will for our lives, although only one—the path we choose—actually becomes his will.¹¹

The more in accord you are with God’s will in this sense, the more decisions you are able to see as viable at any given time. So long as whatever you decide does not compromise your holiness, your decisions will remain perfectly in accord with God’s will. Sittser again:

We might have ten important decisions to make and a hundred possible pathways we could follow. We might wish that God would tell us exactly what to do, where to go, and how to choose. Yet Jesus only requires that we make sure our heart is good, our motives are pure, and our basic direction in life is right…We can, in good conscience, choose from among any number of reasonable alternatives and continue to do the will of God.¹²

If you still have any doubts about this picture of God’s will, the following passage might be illuminating. In 2 Corinthians 2, Paul reflects on his travels to the city of Troas, where he was to receive word from Titus regarding his visit to Corinth:

Now when I went to Troas to preach the gospel of Christ and found that the Lord had opened a door for me, I still had no peace of mind, because I did not find my brother Titus there. So I said good-by to them and went on to Macedonia. [2 Cor. 2:12-13]

At one point I read this passage and thought to myself, “Paul, what are you doing? You said yourself that ‘the Lord had opened a door’ for you there! Why did you leave?” If God has a specific, individual will for us, then Paul was clearly disregarding it by leaving Troas. Instead, he worshipfully moves on to Macedonia, reasoning

But thanks be to God, who always leads us in triumphal procession in Christ and through us spreads everywhere the fragrance of the knowledge of him. [2 Cor 2:14]

Paul understood the freedom he had. Paradoxically then, the more in accord we are with God’s will, the freer we become in our own will. Dallas Willard provides a helpful illustration:

When our children, John and Becky, were small, they were often completely in my will as they played happily in the back yard, though I had no preference that they should do the particular things they were doing there or even that they should be in the back yard instead of playing in their rooms or having a snack in the kitchen. Generally speaking we are in God’s will whenever we are leading the kind of life he wants for us. And that leaves a lot of room for initiative on our own part, which is essential: our individual initiatives are central to his will for us.¹³

So far we’ve seen that the question “What is God’s will for me” refers to God’s desirous will. To further clarify on what God’s desirous will is, we learned that it is not fated or predetermined, mysterious, or person-relative. Finally, as scripture clearly lays out, God’s desirous will for us can be summarized as maintaining personal holiness. But how do we do God’s will?

IV. How Do I Do God’s Desirous Will?
Doing God’s will is always in the context of the present. For as Sittser points out, “the only time we really have both to know and do God’s will is the present moment.”¹⁴ And it is in each present moment, however seemingly mundane, we begin to do what Paul promises will enable us to “test and approve what God’s will is”:

Therefore, I urge you, brothers, in view of God’s mercy, to offer your bodies as living sacrifices, holy and pleasing to God—this is your spiritual act of worship. Do not conform any longer to the pattern of this world, but be transformed by the renewing of your mind. Then you will be able to test and approve what God’s will is—his good, pleasing and perfect will. [Rom. 12:1-2]

In other words, doing God’s will starts from the inside out. “Sow a thought, reap an action. Sow an action, reap a habit. Sow a habit, reap a destiny”. If you’re on the disciplined path to holiness, much of doing God’s will is simply doing the obvious. I have a hard time believing that the smartest thing to do in a given situation is that far from what God would desire of us. Does this eliminate God from our decision making? Hardly! In fact, on this view, the more we’re working toward personal holiness, the more likely it is we’ll know God’s thoughts on a matter (see 1 Cor. 2:4-16). Like in the example about the beloved and the lover above, this view of God’s will is far more intimate. The view that God’s will is mysterious and person-relative, on the other hand, features the lover as a mule who constantly needs to be ordered about. Nor does this view disqualify signs or words from God as legitimate reasons to act upon something. God can choose to reveal or communicate something to you either by his purposive or permissive will.¹⁵

Thus, we see that it’s not figuring out what God’s will is that’s difficult—it’s doing it. Perhaps this is why Christians are so eager to infuse it with mystery! Ignorance is bliss! Jesus knew what was about to transpire as he prayed in garden of Gesthemane, “Father, if you are willing, take this cup from me.” Yet he humbly submitted, “not my will, but yours be done” (Luke 22:39-42). There couldn’t be a better example in scripture than this to illustrate how, though difficult at times, in the end it is the doing of God’s desirous will that reveals God’s plan for our lives.
______________________________________________________________

1. Charles Swindoll, The Mystery of God’s Will (Thomas Nelson, 2001). John MacArther, Found: God’s Will (Chariot Victor Publishing; Rev. ed., 1998).
2. Jack Cottrell, The Faith Once for All (College Press, 2^nd Printing, 2003), 115.
3. Dallas Willard, Hearing God (InterVarsity, 1999), 32.
4. Ibid., 32.
5. See for example Daniel Howard-Snyder and Paul Moser, Eds., Divine Hiddenness (Cambridge University Press, 2001). J. L. Schellenberg, Divine Hiddenness and Human Reason (Cornell University Press, 2006).
6. Garry Friesen, Decision Making and the Will of God (Multnomah Books, 1980), 35.
7. Quoted in James C. Petty, Step By Step: Divine Guidance for Ordinary Christians (P&R, 1999), 96.
8. Friesen, Decision Making and the Will of God, 97-113.
9. Frank Viola, Rethinking the Will of God (Present Testimony Ministry, 2006), 15-21.
10. Friesen, Decision Making and the Will of God, 145.
11. Jerry Sittser, The Will of God as a Way of Life (Zondervan, 2004), 34-35.
12. Ibid., 31.
13. Dallas Willard, Hearing God, 11.
14. Jerry Sittser, The Will of God as a Way of Life, 34.
15. For a detailed account of this point, see Nicholas Wolterstorff, Divine Discourse: Philosophical Reflections on the Claim that God Speaks (Cambridge University Press, 1995).