Where there's a Will...

     You've been accepted into three different colleges.  Which one should you go to?  You have been presented with two ministry opportunities this summer.  Which one are you supposed to get involved in?  You have several job offers.  Which is the right one for you?  You've just moved to a new town and have visited several great churches.  Where should you plug in?  Or how about this problem that everyone on TV faces but no one in real life ever does: You have three different suitors who all adore you and want to marry you...and they're all irresistible?  How do you determine which one to marry?  More realistically, what about that one person you're dating and considering marrying?  How do you know if it's right?  Do you see where I'm going with this?  We have a lot of important choices to make in life, some I didn't even mention above.  What would God have us do in these situations?  It can be hard to know.

     In my last post, I recommended the book Twisted Scripture, a recently-published book by Andrew Farley.  I still do recommend it, although I told you there was one chapter I disagreed with, and that I would go into it in this post.  In one of the chapters in the book, Farley talks about God's will.  The myth he is refuting is that God's will is really hard to figure out, and that it's like hitting a target, and if we don't get a bulls-eye, then we miss out on God's perfect will for us and end up in His "permissive" will, getting God's second-best...or worse.  I agree with Farley in the sense that this scenario isn't how it works.  However, I also disagree with the other extreme, which Farley goes to.  In essence, he says that we are free to do whatever we want, because we are saved and sanctified, and are incapable of having wrong desires anymore.  Whatever decisions we make, they're God's will and God is in them, because we are believers and God is with us.  He says it is "advisable" to pray for guidance in important decisions, but ultimately, we are blessed whatever decisions we make.  I can't completely agree with this.  I do agree that we don't need to be tormented or in agony about God's will, but it is much more than "advisable" to pray for wisdom when making decisions.  It is vital.  Christians are automatically justified (made right with God) at salvation, but sanctification (becoming more like Christ) takes a lifetime, so we are still capable of wrong decisions.  Besides, not all choices are between good and bad.  Some are between good and better.  God's best for me might not be God's best for you.  We need God's guidance badly, because he does have an ultimate plan that we are a part of.  More importantly, God wants us to interact with Him, because He loves us and wants a relationship with us.

     One of the best books I have read in my Christian life is on the very subject of knowing and doing the will of God.  It is entitled Experiencing God, by Henry Blackaby.  You can order it here.  God has used this book tremendously in my life.  I recommend it highly.

     I've heard a lot of people's opinions about the will of God.  Some say God is obviously in control, so we can just do what we want, and He'll override anything that isn't His will.  While it is true that God is in control and absolutely can override anything, we shouldn't bet on that.  On a similar note, others have said that God doesn't really care about what we do, and that we can do what we please, so long as it isn't technically defined in the Bible as sin.  You would think this way of living would make a person happy, because it is basically permission to do what you want...but for me, that is a very depressing way to live.  I see my own neediness before God, in incapability to choose rightly without His help.  It sounds like God doesn't care about my life at all, and I'm kind of on my own, fending for myself.  This isn't how God was in the Bible.  He was very involved with His people.

     I know when I was single, waiting for my future husband (who ended up being Walter) I really struggled with this.  I had a very good friend who had felt called to the mission field.  She had broken up with a boyfriend because he didn't have that calling.  This guy really wanted to marry her.  After the breakup, he transferred to her college, and basically wore her down until she got back together with him.  When she made that choice to give up the mission field and be with this guy, she changed drastically.  She changed her theology.  When I asked her, "What about your calling to missions?" she replied, "God doesn't care about callings."  Whoa!  When I asked her, "Do you believe this man is the one God has for you?" she said, "You can marry anyone you want, as long as they're a Christian.  God doesn't care."   As a single girl, really waiting on the Lord, and having recently been through a painful breakup, my friend's words bothered me.  If God had no part in it, there was no hope for me.  I didn't have a boyfriend at the time.  Was it then my responsibility to make it happen?  I just couldn't go along with that.  After the painful relationship I had been in, I was stripped of all confidence in this area, and knew I needed God's guidance.  And besides, God isn't so "hands off" like that.  It just didn't seem like the God I had come to know.


     Whether or not my friend was actually called to the mission field and gave it up, or whether she was supposed to marry this guy (which she did, and once she did, being with him became His will--I'll touch on that later.), I disagree with her reasoning and the change in her beliefs.  God cares very much about our calling.   I believe God has a very specific plan for all of His children...and for the world.  He invites us to be a part of that plan.  That means every detail of our lives is orchestrated by God, including (especially) the big stuff like who we marry, or even if we marry.

Janelle and Walter's wedding day

     Let's look at how God worked throughout the Bible.  God communicated directly with His people, both in the Old and New Testament.  He called Noah to build an ark (Genesis 6:13ff).  He called Abram out of his own country and promised to make him a great nation (Genesis 12:1-3).  He called Moses to lead His people out of Egypt (Exodus 3).  He called Elijah in several specific aspects of his life and ministry as a prophet in Israel (First Kings 17, 18, 19:9-21).  He called Jonah to preach to Nineveh (Jonah 1:1).  He called Peter to preach to Cornelius (Acts 10).  He called Saul of Tarsus to be the Apostle Paul (Acts 9).  This list is far from complete, but it is a start.  It establishes how God spoke to believers in both the Old and New Testaments.  God hasn't changed.  Like the believers in the book of Acts, we are under grace now, as opposed to the law.  Our relationship with God is different than that of Old Testament saints.  The way we approach God is different.  But He still speaks today.

     In all of the instances where God spoke to people that I listed above, the people involved had a choice to make, either listen and obey, or refuse.  The most famous story of disobedience is Jonah.  He ran away from God's calling, and paid dearly for it (Jonah 1 and 2).  Less considered instances or refusal or disobedience (or at least acting outside of God's leading) include Abram going down to Egypt and lying (Genesis 12:10-20), Moses arguing with God (Exodus 4:13) and disobeying in front of the people (Numbers 20:11), and Elijah running in fear from Jezebel and wanting to die (First Kings 19:1-8). In all cases, disobedience cost these people something, but it did not hinder God's ultimate plans.  Psalm 33:11 says, "But the counsel of the Lord stands forever..."  Isaiah 46:10 says, "I make known the end from the beginning, from ancient times what is still to come. I say, 'My purpose will stand, and I will do all that I please.'"

     From all of this, I consider the big takeaway to be that God is Sovereign.  Out of love for us, He includes us in His purposes, but even if we botch it up, His will still ultimately happens.  When we disobey, we're the ones who miss out.  When I was in high school, my pastor used to tell this story.  He was at a funeral, and really felt the prompting of the Holy Spirit to stand up and share the gospel.  He felt awkward and didn't really want to do it, so he kind of silently argued with God.  While he stalled, another Christian in attendance stood up and preached the gospel.  My pastor told us that God's plan still happened, but he was the one who missed out on the blessing of obedience.  We can't botch up God's plan.  We can't botch up history in some major way.  This isn't Back to the Future after all!

         In each instance I shared above about God's speaking to individuals, every encounter with God was different.  Moses got a burning bush.  No one else in history met God in quite that way.  Elijah heard a still, small voice.  Peter had a vision (of course, he had spent three years being Jesus' disciple before that).  Paul met Jesus on the road to Damascus.  None of these people had the exact same experience.  The same is true today.  We all have our individual walks with the Lord.  But there are some principles.  We have the inner testimony of the Holy Spirit, who guides us into all truth (John 16:13).  We have the Bible.  God will never lead us to do something that violates what He has said in the Bible.  God will never call us to lie, commit adultery, murder, etc.  Those things are clearly sin.  But the Bible is much more than just a big list of what we can and can't do. It is alive! Sometimes, I'm reading a verse I've read many times, but it suddenly jumps out at me.  That's the Holy Spirit getting my attention.  Does that ever happen to you?

     Getting back to my single years and my friend who got back with her boyfriend (later husband)...as I had shared, I had been through a very hurtful relationship.  In my pain and confusion, I sort of wanted this guy back, and was grasping at straws that maybe it was God's will after all.  In my heart of hearts, I knew it wasn't right, but I needed some assurance from God.  I prayed and asked God to speak to me about it.  I opened my Bible for my quiet time.  I happened (in God's divine Providence) to be in First Samuel 16, and verse one was my answer: "And the Lord said to Samuel, 'How long will you mourn for Saul,  seeing as I have rejected him...'"  It was as if God were asking me, "How long will you mourn over this guy, seeing as I have rejected him from being the one for you?"  I knew at that moment that this was God's answer to me.  Even though I still had a lot of emotions to work through, I had joy too, knowing God loved me enough to answer me, and reveal His will.  I was assured He was in control, and I could rest in that.  Not every person reading this passage would be called by God to apply it this way (in fact, just about nobody would!), but at that moment, the Holy Spirit inside me knew it was what I needed.  When I shared this with my friend who had recently gotten back with her boyfriend and thought God didn't care about callings, she got very angry and told me I'd better be careful, because I was creating my own doctrine.  She likened me to Joseph, Smith, who founded Mormonism.  She was wrong.  I wasn't creating doctrine.  I was going deeper with God.  I was hearing Him speak to me about my situation through His word.  His Spirit was taking a passage written thousands of years ago and applying it to me that day at the dawn of the twenty-first century.  Only the Bible can have that effect, because we have the Author in our hearts, and because the Bible is "Living and Active" (Hebrews 4:12). It isn't something we conjure up.  The Bible isn't a crystal ball we look to for some random answer.  God has to do it.  The Bible has one meaning (very important!), but unlimited applications.  As for my friend, I believe I touched a nerve, because she was denying what God was calling her to do.  But I cannot speak for her.  She's not me, and I'm not her.  I'm only accountable for myself.  

     There are many verses that support the idea of God having plans for us, and guiding us.  Psalm 37:23 says, "The steps of a good man are ordered by the Lord, and he delighteth in his way."  Proverbs 3:5-6 admonishes us to "Trust in the Lord with all your heart, and lean not on your own understand in all your ways acknowledge Him, and he shall direct your paths."  In Acts 16, we are told that Paul and his companions tried to go to Asia, but the Lord kept preventing them, and He then sent them to Europe by way of a dream.  God had plans for them (and for the history of the world, but that's a story for another time).  And He has plans for us.  Plans for our future.  Plans for where we live, who we marry, what job we have. What impact we make for eternity.  All of that.  

     God also speaks to us through other believers, and through circumstances working out certain ways.  When all of these things are working together, that is often how God guides us.  I also happen to believe that if we are walking with the Lord, seeking Him daily, that when we are suddenly faced with a choice, we will have a pretty good idea already of what God would want, because we have already been hearing from Him and seeking Him.  Romans 14:23 tells us "...whatsoever is not of faith is sin."  This means that if we don't act on what we believe God leading us to do, we've sinned, even if we haven't technically broken a commandment.  Consider Jonah a moment: It wasn't technically a sin to get on a boat headed for Tarshish, but it was a sin for Jonah, because God had told him to go to Nineveh (Jonah 1:1-3).  He didn't break a written commandment, but he broke God's personal command to him.  We do the same thing sometimes.

     In spite of all of this, some people still act as if God doesn't have an interest in our lives.  Like it's our job to figure it out.  One verse that encouraged me a lot when I was single was James 1:17, "Every good and perfect gift is from above..." Another was Psalm 37:4, "Delight yourself also in the Lord, and He will give you the desires of your heart."  Both of these verses speak of God being the one to give us these things.  We're not alone, on our own, trying to do it.  These verses weren't guaranteeing that I would get whatever I wanted out of life.  No one gets that guarantee.  But it does relieve us of having to make things happen.  It's in God's court.  Our job is to obey His leading in our lives.  A definitive verse that establishes both God's calling on us and His fulfillment is First Thessalonians 5:24, "Faithful is He that calleth you, who also will do it."  

     I think my favorite passage about marriage (and in a larger sense, about God's Sovereign leading) is the story of Isaac and Rebekah, in Genesis 24.  Abraham sent his servant to choose a bride for Isaac.  The servant was clearly a godly man.  He really sought God's guidance in this most important decision.  He didn't have the benefit of the completed Word of God (or really any of it!) or the Holy Spirit in his heart, but he obviously loved and feared God.  He asked God for some very specific signs about the right woman, and God led Rebekah to him.  She was the one God had for Isaac.  It was also the first time in the Bible that it says a man loved a woman!  Isaac is my favorite Patriarch, as he was the only one who was a one-woman man.  If God had picked out Rebekah for Isaac, He does the same for us now.  And not just with the issue of marriage, but with every issue.  If He cares about who we marry, don't you think He cares about our jobs, our homes, our churches, etc?  Acts 17:26 says that God "...determined allotted periods and boundaries of their dwelling places."  This is saying God, in His Divine Providence, determined where and when we would live and be.  Why?  The next verse tells us that it is so we would know Him.  God knew that Los Angeles, California in 1982 was the very best time and place for me to be born, so that Riverside, California in 1987 was the very best time and place for me to receive Christ as my personal Savior.  Albuquerque, New Mexico in 2019 is the very best place for me to walk with Him today.  If God works out all of this, He must have a plan for our lives!

     On another note entirely, what about when we miss God's plan?  What about when we sin, or make honest mistakes, or just aren't aware of what God is doing?  Who of us hasn't missed it at times?  No one has followed God's will perfectly, and that's where grace comes in.  God loves us.  It is never too late to get back on the path of God's will for us.  There are things we may have missed out on, such as my high school pastor not getting the joy of sharing the gospel at that funeral.  But God still deeply desires to use us.  He is bigger than our sin and mistakes.  He can even redeem those things.  We can't go back to the past and undo our decisions, and God doesn't ask us to.  He asks us to move forward.  In other words, if my friend was originally called to the mission field, but she married this guy who didn't want to go and stayed in the US instead, she could start listening and obeying God, experiencing Him working in her life, but He wouldn't lead her to leave her husband and go to the mission field.  She could only move forward with her life.  We all can.  The Apostle Paul (who had many regrets) wrote in Philippians 3:13b-14: "Forgetting what is behind, and reaching for what is ahead.  I press on toward the goal to win the prize for which God has called me heavenward."  Move on in God's grace.  That's all any of us can ever do.