(Revisiting my most popular post)
This is the title to one of my first posts after starting this blog. I questioned some thoughts a Nicole had shared on her blog which now appears to be an Etsy website (NicoleLeeArtistry). Over the years, this post and the questions received in the comments section garnered the most views over anything else I’ve written – and by a significant margin. Which begs the question, why? How has this post become so popular on my MMM site? When I wrote it, I was starting to question various beliefs and tenants of my Christian faith. Yet, even as a devout Evangelical Christian in preceding years, I never believed that God had a specific and perfect will for each believer. Most around me seemed to accept how it was that God would lay before each believer a scroll and that as the believer matured in their faith, God would reveal more of himself and the specificity as to the direction God wanted an individual to move.
Nicole’s perception of a personal God interacting in specific ways with his creation mirrors exactly what I’ve seen within many Christians – believing that Goes is loving, caring, protecting and providing of a specific will for each believer’s life. The common belief followed that however God sent had someone into a given circumstance, God’s grace would always follow and protect. Nicole clearly stated this:
“If you seek to do the will of God, and you ask for His guidance and blessings and influence in your life, and you open your mind and senses to hear Him speak to you when you need it most, then you will know God’s will because He will make His will known. It is up to us to listen! If you choose not to ask, and you choose not to listen, it is a choice you make. However, if you choose to ask and choose to listen – ask God for what it is you need and He will provide – seek and you will find.”
The notion of God’s perfect will has always been difficult a concept for me. Not just as a new believer in my teenage years, but also throughout the following 40yrs as a fervent evangelical Christian. How does one differentiate the mundane vs the extraordinary? Or how does one decipher God’s preferred course or any direction to follow? In the early 1980s, I became aware of Garry Friesen’s book, Decision Making and the Will of God. Friesen references five verses in which Paul appeared to make decisions without first seeking the God’s specific will:
1 Thess 3:1 (We’d had enough and decided something else)
Phil 2:25 (I think it’s a good idea)
1 Cor 16:3-4 (If it seems the right thing to do)
Acts 6:1-7 (We need to do something about this)
Acts 15:24-29 (People got together, debated, decided and acted)
Yet, when I brought up these verses in conversation, they were glossed over. It seemed to me that people avoided decision making and instead relied on signs, visions, encounters or a specific Bible verse. I’d heard many people praying for God’s will. Praying for such things as to which school to attend, health, insight, wisdom, a job, a spouse, having children, which house or car to buy, and on and on. And I’d heard from many of these same people their resolute steadfastness that God was directing them and had heard their prayers and was answering them in a profound way. I never experienced anything like this. I agreed with Friesen, God had specific moral laws and if we obeyed those laws, we were left to our own personal discretion. And of course, we were responsible for the outcomes of those decisions. For me, praying for God’s will was playing make-believe. I never experienced any confirmation or a telltale sign that I might be moving contrary to God’s will.
The requisite lines were ever present i.e. ‘There’s a reason for everything,’ ‘God moves in mysterious ways,’ ‘The Lord giveth, and the Lord taketh away’ and ‘Nothing happens by chance.’ John Piper wrote in response to the September 11th, 2001, terrorist attack:
“How God governs all events in the universe without sinning, and without removing responsibility from man, and with compassionate outcomes is mysterious indeed. But that is what the Bible teaches. From the smallest thing to the greatest thing, good and evil, happy and sad, pagan and Christian, pain and pleasure – God governs them all for his wise and just and good purposes.”
So, per Piper, it’s easy to conclude that God ensures that whatever happens to anyone at any time is because it’s exactly what God wanted to happen. I heard more than one reference how being in the ‘center of God’s will’ is where the believer needs to be. Venn diagrams incorporating circles around different “points of consideration” helping to locate that center demonstrated confidence that God was leading in a specific direction. And, of course, many believers incorporate favorite ‘go-to’ verses to discern God’s specific will:
- Prov 3:6 – In all your ways acknowledge him, and he shall direct your paths.
- Prov 16:9 – In his heart a man plans his course, but the Lord determines his steps.
- Acts 22:10 – What shall I do, Lord?
In his book, Decision Making and the will of God” (pg 32-33), Friesen talks about the “traditional” method for uncovering the will of God wherein:
- Guidance comes through obedience in the ordinary.
- Guidance comes through suddenly changing circumstances.
- Guidance may come through supernatural events.
- Guidance comes through wise counsel.
- Guidance comes through common sense.
In his book, Discovering God’s Will for Your Life, pg 121-122 Ray Pritchard asks seven questions to ascertain whether something is or is not God’s will:
- Can I be guided?
- Have I looked at an issue from all angles?
- Have I sought out wise counsel?
- Do the circumstances seem to point in a particular direction?
- Have I searched the scriptures to discover what God might have to say about the matter?
- Does there appear to be a provision of supernatural guidance?
- Am I willing to do what God wants regardless of the consequences?
Indeed, there are lots of books written by Christian authors about God’s will. Yet, at least in my opinion, the award for the most foolish and nonsensical understanding of how to discover God’s will belongs to Josh McDowell. In his book God’s Will, God’s Best, McDowell speaks of a “four-step” strategy in determining just what God’s will might be: – prayer, counsel, circumstances and scripture. Read through the book, I was dismayed just how muddy the water on each element can be. Each element of his four-step strategy contains a significant caution to not trust the other elements. McDowell states:
“Now, you [must] be careful with circumstances … if you apply to three schools and all three turn you down, it might be a closed door, a good indication from circumstances that God wants to send you into something else. However, it might be you should knock on that closed door a little bit just to be sure the door stays closed. And just because a door seems wide open doesn’t automatically mean you should run right through it.” (pg 114)
Huh!? What!!?? Really!!!??? So, could an open door be a sign to keep out? And conversely, a closed door may be a sign to go in? And whatever the sign, it requires verification whether something is from God or not? I submit that using a ‘sign’ strategy only creates confusion and a ‘path of least resistance.’ How could it not?
There’s the distinct impression that a “Godwillian” (my term for someone seeking God’s specific will on a given matter) must provide various counterbalances for their perception of God’s “perfect will” to protect themselves – or at least give themselves an “out” should they later conclude that they may not have accurately ‘heard’ God. The Bible is replete with passages on how we are to live. Yet, there are no scriptures regarding the interpretation of circumstances, determining whether a “door” is an open [Yes], partially open [Wait] or closed [No]. Nor does there appear to be any biblical test one can perform to choose among apparent equal options.
A Sunday morning’s sermon at the church I attended was entitled, How Can I Know the Will of God? Prov 3:5-6 was a key reference. The pastor’s KJV translation stated, “And He will direct your paths.” My NIV translation says, “And He will make your paths straight.” Hmmm. Are there some substantive and interpretational differences between these translations? Perhaps I’ll write about these in a subsequent post. The pastor closed his sermon with the following statements:
- We shouldn’t depend on our own understanding.
- We also shouldn’t “deny our own smarts.”
- You’ve got to trust, even when it doesn’t make sense.
- God will guide your career, marriage, dating, and college so long as he’s Lord of all.
I think these perspectives are naïve. Yet, they likely sound more spiritual to some believers. But ultimately, how, and on what basis does a believer make decisions? I don’t doubt that throughout the Bible, there are instances where God has led specific individuals. However, it seems that direct guidance has been a rare exception and not the general rule. In addition, As Friesen states:
- In moral decisions, Christians are to live in obedience to the stated moral will of God.
- In non-moral decisions, Christians are free and responsible to choose their own course of action.
I spoke with the pastor about his sermon. His response was reminiscent of what I’d heard John Piper refer to in his book, Desiring God:
- God is interested in “everything” about our lives, even the tiniest of details.
- We weren’t saved and then left to our own devices.
- God is most glorified when we trust him and seek him in all things.
Soon thereafter came a push for a church building program for a larger worship area, an education wing and to make modifications to an existing gymnasium. There was intense seeking of God’s will on this matter. Sermons followed on how we (corporately and personally) can identify the will of God for individuals, nations, entities even whether a particular Evangelical Free Church in MN should have a building program. During a congregational meeting to discuss the building program, I asked, “What is the criteria to determine whether this church should have a building program?” The room got quiet and after a pause with some bobbing of the pastor’s and elder’s heads seated at table in the front, I asked a subsequent question, “How will it be determined that God may be saying ‘No’ to a building program even if all the ancillary evidence indicates ‘Yes’?” The room got even quieter with some additional shuffling amongst the elders and the pastor, I felt many of the congregants’ eyes bearing down on me with some murmuring amongst the congregation following. Eventually, the stated answer was unequivocal, “We will trust God to make his will known to us.”
Just as I ‘d suspected, there was no answer. The elders and the pastor were ‘playing church’ and otherwise making stuff up. The pastor, the elders and likely many within the congregation sided with the perspective that ‘God will show us his will’. On the other hand, I’d concluded that the plans for a building expansion program where a business decision. Given the financials of the church, I thought taking on such a large amount of debt was a poor decision. Even so, I felt like an outcast. Concluding that the pastor, the elders and many in that congregation were seeking a “scroll” for the building program, I decided that it was best for me to begin attending a different church.
I’m admittedly uncomfortable with the notion of God’s will. It seems apparent to me that the “thou shalt” and “thou shalt not” verses point to behaviors and standards of conduct. Nor am I able to point to a single instance within my life where I felt something external trying to move me in a specific direction. Ultimately, whenever I’ve made decisions, it was always based on the evidence that I had at the time. In short, it just seemed like the best thing to do.
Feel free to agree or disagree with what I’ve written here. One’s thoughts and comments are always appreciated. And, too, I’m curious as to why this post seems to have resonated (or at least been read) by so many?
Here’s a link to the original post that includes more of Nicole’s thoughts on the will of God: https://martinsmercurialmusings.com/2008/04/11/the-will-of-god-will-never-take-you-where-the-grace-of-god-will-not-protect-you/
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