A personal God is an offense to most people. Why? It is relatively easy to acknowledge a God who smiles down upon all we do with little interference in our lives. However, a God who has a definite will, purpose, and plan, and calls us to align our wills with his will is not so readily accepted. It is this aspect of God that is the most offensive feature of a personal God – especially to those who want nothing to do with God’s will. We cannot truly encounter this God – a personal God with a personal will – unless we are willing to be changed.

A God who makes no claims on our lives may be easy to live with, but is ultimately irrelevant to our lives. This God is not unlike the impersonal “energy” of New Age religion and much “folk spirituality” – a force that neither demands nor receives anything from us, even though we continually make demands upon it and expect to receive things from it. This may be an easy God to live with, but it is only because the relationship is so one-sided. We tell God what to do but God is not given the opportunity to tell us what to do, lest we lose our precious autonomy and radical individualism. This is a far cry from the Judeo-Christian view of a personal, relational, interested, and active God who makes claims on our lives and invites our response of surrender, faith, respect, and love. In a word, because God loves us intimately, God wants a relationship with us – a two-way relationship of mutual love, trust, intimacy, and desire.

A God without a will – the impersonal force of folk spirituality – is an apathetic God who cannot truly be good. This God has no real interest in who we are, what we do, and why we do what we do. This God does not have (and does not want) a real relationship with us. What would we think of parents who treat their children this way? Parents who had no interest in their children’s choices, character, motivations, and direction in life would be labeled negligent, apathetic, unfit, and unloving.

God, the perfect parent, is intensely interested in our choices. The God of the Bible has a purpose to accomplish in creation. Put simply, God has a will. Certain behaviors, attitudes, and intentions align with God’s will. Others do not. The execution and accomplishment of God’s will brings God pleasure. Apathy and outright resistance to God’s will brings God disappointment and displeasure.

God wants us to do what pleases him – for his sake, for our sake, and for the world’s sake. By desiring this, God is doing what any good parent does. God is interested in our choices and is pleased when we do what is wise, good, and loving in God’s ordered and purposeful creation. When we say that we believe in a personal God, we are declaring that God has a will, and that God desires us to align ourselves with the divine will for our good and for God’s glory.

And it is precisely this that offends people: To believe in a personal God is to believe that God possesses a will. This creates a clash of wills between God and those who do not desire to discern and practice God’s will. And that describes all of us to some degree.

The best measure of faith in a personal God is to want what God wants – that is, to desire what God desires, to will what God wills. It is this petition – “Thy will be done” – that “is the ultimate yardstick of faith, the measure by which one can discern, in oneself first of all, profound from superficial faith, profound religiosity from a false one.”[1] The challenge of practicing God’s will is that we rarely want to do it. It conflicts with our innate selfishness, our desire for control, and our tendency to distrust God. It forces us to ask ourselves what we really want in life. It challenges us to consider whom we really serve.

Jesus knew of this conflict. For this reason, he taught us to daily pray, “Thy will be done.” We must regularly pray that our will would align with God’s will – our wants with God’s wants, our purpose with God’s purpose. If we do not keep this ever before us, our natural tendency is to go our own way rather than God’s way.

Perspectives on God’s Will

In order to practice God’s will we must possess knowledge of it. What is the first thing you think of when you hear the phrase, “the will of God”?

Some hear this phrase in a very individualistic way. The will of God is primarily perceived as “the will of God for me.” It is assumed that God’s will revolves around “me and my interests.”[2] When God’s will is understood in this manner, the goal of practicing God’s will is self-improvement, individual fulfillment, and personal happiness. This reduces religion to therapy and God’s will to self-help principles for self-actualization. Professor David Fitch demonstrates how this subtle move undermines the goals and ends of Christianity:

Psychology focuses the patient on “self-actualization” while Christianity teaches the patient to “deny oneself and pick up one’s cross and follow Christ.” Psychology aims for satisfaction in one’s self while Christianity aims for a satisfaction in Christ. Psychology looks inward for goals and well-being; Christianity looks outward toward God and his purposes.[3]

For this reason, Fitch argues that “evangelicals ‘give away’ spiritual formation when they sponsor therapy as the means to emotional health as defined by modernity.”[4] The life of salvation – a life conformed to God’s will – is certainly about more than individual improvement.

Others hear this phrase – the will of God – in a fatalistic fashion. God’s will is understood to be an arbitrary fate to which we must resign ourselves. “What will be, will be,” regardless of anything we do. We have no choice in the matter. We are merely pawns on the divine chessboard with a predetermined outcome. When God’s will is understood in this manner, the goal of practicing God’s will is stoic acceptance. We don’t have to “want it” or even “like it.” Our duty is simply to resign ourselves to whatever “will be.”

Others view God’s will as something that only matters for the “big decisions” in life. The will of God is primarily about seeking the answers to the big questions in life: “Where should I live?” “Who should I marry?” “When should I change jobs?” It is assumed that God is only marginally concerned about the bulk of our lives that consist of the simple routines of daily living. When God’s will is understood in this manner, the goal of practicing God’s will is to be wise enough to discover it in order to keep from making major mistakes in the big decisions of life. The rest of life – indeed, the bulk of life – is exempt from the struggle of “discovering” God’s will.

Though there may be morsels of truth in the perspectives above, none of these ways of understanding God’s will gets to the heart of the matter. God’s will is not primarily about individual fulfillment, stoic resignation to fate, or uncovering clues concerning major life decisions. God’s will is much more pervasive and practical. God’s will is intended to inform and shape our entire life. God’s will has to do with the kind of person God wants us to be – with our character formation.

This changes the way the question of God’s will is framed:

The question I once asked, “What am I supposed to do?” is different from, but related to, the question I now ask, “Who am I to become through the circumstances that surround me, the people I relate to, and the decisions I am called upon to make?”

God’s will it not what God wants, but what God WANTS! Not, that is, God's preference, But God’s passion, desire, or longing.[5]

When God’s will is understood in this manner, the goal of practicing God’s will is christlikeness in all things. “It doesn’t mean that you get everything you want; rather, that gradually you get to want only Jesus.”[6]

The Will of God is Not…

When God’s will is viewed in this light, the weaknesses of the first three perspectives are exposed. We are in a better position to clearly state what the will of God is not.

The will of God is not primarily individualistic. God’s will is God’s purpose for all creation, and not simply for individuals within God’s creation. God’s will is global, universal, and all-encompassing.[7] The will of God has to do with God’s grand and cosmic plan to redeem, renew, and restore all creation to glorious perfection (Eph. 1:10; Col. 1:20; Matt. 19:28; Acts 3:21; Romans 8:21-22; 1 Peter 3:13; 1 Cor. 15:28; Rev. 21:1-4). Through Christ Jesus and by the Spirit, God is removing all things that would get in the way of his purpose for this world. God has given his people insight into the mystery of his divine plan (Eph. 1:9-10; 3:4-11). It is this mystery – this “open secret” – that we possess in Christ and are called to share with the entire world. It is our privilege to know God’s will by God’s grace; it is our responsibility to share God’s “open secret” with all people.

All things are being made new in Christ! God’s kingdom has come and is coming. Since God’s kingdom has been established in Christ, we now, in the Spirit, await the glorious consummation. Jesus’ victory is complete and, thus, cannot be stopped or thwarted. All the evil powers of this world – sin, evil, violence, demonic forces, and even death – have been disarmed. They can do nothing to undermine Jesus’ triumph (Romans 8:37-39). Now, all things in heaven and earth are being brought under the headship of Christ. Since the glorious end of all these things is certain, it only makes sense to align our wills with these redemptive realities in the present. In this way, God’s universal will of cosmic redemption is the basis for our individual response. We must align ourselves with God’s will, for only God’s will will triumph in the end. To this end, we pray, “Thy kingdom come, thy will be done, on earth as it is in heaven.”

The will of God is not stoic or fatalistic resignation. In light of God’s universal will, we might conclude that since God is going to do what he wants anyway, we had better just grit our teeth and accept it. This is an unwarranted deduction. God does not want us to dispassionately accept God’s will. God, like a good parent, wants us to desire God’s will. God does not want fatalistic resignation, but passionate participation.

Certainly, God’s purpose will be accomplished. God is God after all. Jesus has secured this victory through his death, burial, resurrection, and ascension. But this is not the issue; it is our participation in God’s will that is the issue. It is not stoic acceptance of God’s will, but active participation in God’s will that God desires.

In this present time between the establishment and consummation of God’s kingdom, things are not as they ultimately will be. We admit this when we pray, “Thy will be done.” We acknowledge that God’s will is not always freely accepted in this world. In spite of the establishment of God’s kingdom, God’s will continues to be opposed. Not everyone is interested in participating in God’s kingdom purpose. When we pray that God’s will be “done on earth, as it is in heaven” we are asking that God’s will would be willingly done in this world as it is joyously and freely accomplished in heaven.

The will of God is not a crystal ball foretelling the future. Many people act as if God’s will for them is a deeply guarded secret that is only discovered with great difficulty. God’s will is like a maze with only one way out. Every other way is a dead end. The right series of choices brings blessedness, happiness, and success. One wrong choice results in missing God’s will altogether. Doing God’s will involves an unbroken string of right choices. It only takes one wrong choice – one wrong turn in the maze – to halt the whole process. Every choice, especially those having to do with major life transitions, is undertaken with great anxiety and fear.

Although there is a future dimension to God’s will,[8] it is certainly not the most important dimension when it comes to practicing God’s will. Indeed, this dimension receives little attention in the Bible. Biblically speaking, the will of God is not primarily about the future; it is about the present! Practicing the will of God is not about discovering a cleverly hidden secret, but living what has been revealed.

This is pastor Gerald Sittser’s conclusion in his book, The Will of God as a Way of life: “I discovered that the Bible says very little about the will of God as a future pathway that we must discover and then follow. Instead, the Bible warns us about anxiety and presumption concerning the future, assures us that God is in control, and commands us to do the will of God we already know in the present.”[9]

Instead of understanding God’s will as stoic resignation to fate or as something only relevant to the big decisions in life, Sittser calls us to something much more practical and all-embracing. By focusing on the future, we fail to live God’s will in the present. Our search for God’s will in the big concerns of life causes us to fail to live God’s will in the small things – which, if we are honest, is the subject matter of the bulk of our lives! Sittser challenges us to reverse our thinking concerning God’s will: “Perhaps our attention to these little things is the will of God, and our preoccupation with the future a foolish distraction.”[10]

Do You Want God’s Will?

This awareness helps us in discerning our relationship with God. Do we view God as an impersonal energy from whom we make demands but who makes no demands of us? A God who exists to fulfill our will rather than inviting us to seek out and practice God’s will? Are we offended by a personal God with a personal will or is our greatest desire to see God’s will realized in our lives? Are we involved in the rigorous, difficult work of discerning God’s will and practicing it in our daily lives?

C. S. Lewis puts the matter plainly before us: “There are only two kinds of people in the end: those who say to God, ‘Thy will be done,’ and those to whom God says, in the end, ‘Thy will be done.’”[11]

Which type of person are you? Your answer will reveal how much God’s will either offends you or delights you.

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© Richard J. Vincent, 2007