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Fishing for the Will of God

About 2,000 years ago Jesus left Earth. He gave us the Holy Spirit, Scripture and general principles to help us on our path, but what He didn't give us is a blueprint for every decision we'll encounter. So as Christians, how do we know when we're doing what God wants us to do? While we may never be certain that each decision we make is the one that God would choose for us, we do have the tools available to us to make wise, Christ-centered decisions and to have confidence in them.

I've often been instructed to ask God for guidance before making a decision, which is sound advice. But how that guidance is communicated is an important point. To look to Scripture, seek Christian counsel, and then make the best decision is not enough for some. I have been told to listen for the still, small voice, to wait for instruction. But where does that leave us, caught between a mystery and a whisper? The will of God is more than spiritually-minded hindsight. It is the difficult work of bringing our desires in line with His. I get frustrated as a Christian person wanting to do the right thing, to find God’s will for my life, to make decisions that God will applaud. People say, “Don’t let yourself get in the way,” or “Is that your decision or God’s?” But what does that really mean? It seems that they are saying, “Wait, hold still, and don’t move unless God tells you to!” But, we can immobilize ourselves by making the will of God a mystery that can only be worked out by a supernatural event.

In 1 Kings 19, the Lord comes to Elijah as a “gentle whisper,” a passage often quoted to emphasize the subtlety of God’s instruction. But God was not elusive with Elijah....

It seems God leaves decisions up to us to figure out by using discernment and good judgment. We do not need a voice in our head to tell us we have made the right choice. God did not need to tell me where to go to school. I had applied to several good schools and had the tools to choose the one that fit me best. God answered my prayers for guidance by providing trips to the campuses and conversations with students at each school. He then allowed me to make a decision with the information in front of me....

Discovering God's Will

...When we ask, “What is God’s will for my life?” we say more about our culture than our God. The question usually arises over career issues. “What major should I choose?” “What job should I pursue?” “Do I move to this city or that city?” Whatever the specific question, the concern often centers around the workforce. The concern is valid, since we will spend a good deal of life as employees. And if God is so intimately acquainted with us that He has the hairs on our heads numbered, then certainly He is interested in our careers. But I wonder if perhaps we focus too much attention on this matter, as if our specific courses in life were the supreme concern of the Heavenly Father.

No generation or society has ever been afforded such luxury of choice. Our country’s founding principles give us basic rights such as life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness. But it is our nation’s prosperity which has created this virtual sea of specific freedoms, and has in turn created many of our speculations about God’s will for our individual lives. Do I become a doctor or an engineer? Maybe a minister or a politician? Or both? The options for us are almost limitless. We have the happy fortune of choosing work that is both meaningful and lucrative. Many before us simply worked to put food on the table. Do we then conclude that their work was somehow less meaningful or pleasing to God because it came with no individual choice? One can hardly make a case for such a view....

Romans 12 gives us a picture of how universal God’s will can be. Paul writes, “Love must be sincere. Hate what is evil; cling to what is good. Be devoted to one another in brotherly love. Honor one another above yourselves. Never be lacking in zeal, but keep your spiritual ferver, serving the Lord. Be joyful in hope, patient in affliction, faithful in prayer. Share with God’s people who are in need. Practice hospitality. Bless those who persecute you; bless and do not curse. Rejoice with those who rejoice; mourn with those who mourn. Live in harmony with one another. Do not be proud, but be willing to associate with people of low position. Do not be conceited. Do not repay anyone evil for evil. Be careful to do what is right in the eyes of everybody. If it is possible, as far as it depends on you, live at peace with everyone.”

In just 10 verses, Paul lays down enough instruction to keep us busy for a lifetime. And not one word of it has anything to do with God’s will for us as individuals. Could it be that God is less concerned about what we do for eight hours a day than He is with what we become in the process? And could it be that our excessive concern for our own lives is more a reflection of our narcissistic culture than a reflection of our Creator? ...

Faith Without Peace

In the Christian subculture, we often hear the phrase, “I just don’t have a ‘peace’ about it.” This mindset can be harmful to the way we approach the world and our own human experience. Where did this phrase come from? How has it so successfully infiltrated our vernacular? Why do we adopt this idea despite its inconsistency? This pedestal of “peace” is a highly subjective and often unattainable “feeling,” which I believe the biblical narrative calls into question, particularly in the following two stories.

Jonah. We know the story. After God directly instructs him to go to Nineveh in Jonah 1:2, Jonah runs. He boards a boat, goes below deck and falls into a “sound sleep,” despite the fact that the storm outside is so great that the boat was “about to break up.” This is no small feat. How many times do we hear people, in the midst of decision-making, talking about their inability to sleep? Jonah, in direct disobedience, was able to sleep, even though his bed was on the verge of sinking to the bottom of the sea. Sounds to me like Jonah had a “peace” about “fleeing the presence of the Lord.”

...These two stories highlight the dangerous and volatile subjectivity that characteristically surrounds our experience of “peace.” ...

...Larry Crabb wrote on the darkness of decision in his book, The Silence of Adam:
“[God] is telling us what to do, but it’s not a code. He tells us … to love him, and then do whatever we think is best … When it finally dawns on us that God is waiting for us to move and to speak into darkness, that his instruction is to choose a direction consistent with what we know of him, then we stop asking … We have to. He simply won’t tell us specifically what to do. We begin to face the loneliness of choice, the terror of trust.”

We have been given a Counselor in the Holy Spirit, not a drill sergeant. “The Spirit more often whispers encouragement (‘You can do it. I am with you’) than directions (‘Now go tell her this’). ...