In our last chapter we concluded that the will of God is not primarily about individual fulfillment, stoic resignation to future fate, or guidance in the “big” decisions of life. No, the will of God is much more practical and all-embracing.

By focusing on these limited aspects of God’s will, we miss out on what God’s will means for our whole lives. In other words, as the saying goes, “What you focus on determines what you miss.”

• If we focus solely on the will of God as individual fulfillment, we fail to live God’s will for the sake of the world.
• If we focus solely on the will of God as related to the future, we fail to live God’s will in the present.
• If we focus solely on the will of God as it relates to life’s big decisions, we fail to live God’s will in the small things, that is, the bulk of our lives.

Many of us need to reverse our thinking when it comes to God’s will. We need to consider that God’s will is primarily found in our relationships with others in the small actions of daily living. Preoccupation with ourselves or the future is a foolish distraction from living God’s will in the present.

This aligns with Jesus’ teaching in the Sermon on the Mount. In the ancient world, daily necessities like food and clothing were hard-earned, and not always readily available. Obtaining one’s daily requirement of food was a constant struggle. It would be easy, then, for an individual to be consumed with worry about these things. And yet, Jesus teaches his disciples to not be anxious about these daily necessities (Matthew 6:25-31). He reminds them of God’s intimate, daily care (Matthew 6:32).  He challenges them to make God’s kingdom their first priority (Matthew 6:33). And then he offers his most realistic (but often unheeded) advice: “So, do not worry about tomorrow, for tomorrow will bring worries of its own. Today’s trouble is enough for today” (Matthew 6:34).

Jesus’ teaching underscores our three conclusions concerning God’s will:

• God’s will is not primarily individualistic, but kingdom-oriented (“Seek first God’s kingdom”).
• God’s will is not primarily about the future, but the present (“Do not worry about tomorrow”)
• God’s will is not primarily about big events, but common, everday concerns (“eating, drinking, clothes, etc.”)

Why is this important? Because a clear understanding of God’s will is important. A distorted perspective on God’s will can, in the name of God, wreak havoc in our lives and in the lives of those around us.

The tumultuous five-year dating debacle of my good friend, Bill, exemplifies how this can happen. Bill understood God’s will to refer primarily to the future big decisions of his own personal life. After dating Jill for a few months, the future big decision of whether to marry her or not was foremost in his mind. For five years he agonized over whether Jill was the right girl for him. Bill and I spent countless hours working together through this decision and examining every possible twist and turn his relationship with Jill could take. He broke up with her numerous times during this period. For five years, Jill suffered rejection and emotional mistreatment from Bill. Meanwhile, Bill’s job suffered as did his personal ministry to others. His self-absorption caused him to hurt others, to be unpleasant and anxious, and to fail to perform his daily responsibilities. Bill did all this in the name of seeking God’s will for his life! He allowed his future aspirations to do God’s will to be an excuse for ignoring God’s will in the present.

Bill’s plight underscores how important it is to be careful in our understanding of God’s will.

The will of God is not primarily individualistic, but kingdom-centered. The question is not, “What is God’s will for me?” but “What is God doing in this world to bring renewal, restoration, and reconciliation?” Our task is to align our will with God’s will, which ultimately, is the establishment of God’s kingdom.

The will of God is not about the future, but the present, or more accurately, the presence of the future in the present world. Searching for God’s will concerning future big decisions should not keep us from living God’s will in our present daily routines. We must live for God right where we are. Preoccupation with the future can easily distract us from living God’s will in the present. Clearly, anxiety about the future is not God’s will for us in the present. Instead of anxiety about the future, Jesus calls us to establish right priorities and put first things first (Matt. 6:25-34). In other words, we are to view the will of God as a way of life.

When we approach the will of God as a way of life, we live for God right where we are. We recognize that a concern for God’s will is not primarily about big events or future decisions. We discover that God’s will is about life in the present – the big and the little events. Therefore, it our wisdom to be “attentive and responsive to God along the way, even in matters that appear to have little significance.”[1]

Approaching God’s will as a way of life opens us up to greater possibilities in spiritual formation. It is not the big decisions in life that shape us most, but the accumulated power of many small decisions practiced routinely:

For example, we think long and hard when we choose a college, a job or career, or a spouse. This makes good sense, considering how consequential these choices are. But we give little thought to how much TV we watch or how often we talk on the phone or how seldom we praise our children. Yet the little choices we make every day often have a cumulative effect far exceeding the significance of the big choices we occasionally make about the future.[2]

There is wisdom in recognizing that most things which are urgent are not important, and most things which are important are not urgent.[3] When we view God’s will as a way of life, then the most important things are not sacrificed on the altar of the urgent.

God’s Revealed Will

God’s will is plainly revealed in the sacred Scriptures and it encompasses everything – the world, the present, our lives. God’s plan to redeem, renew, and restore all creation in Christ and through the Spirit is the universal expression of God’s will. Every commandment God gives is an expression of God’s will on a personal scale. More often than not, our problem is not discovering God’s will, but actually practicing it in our daily lives.

In order to limit ourselves, we will simply look at the handful of New Testament passages which plainly state God’s will in order to get a sense of the kind of person God wants us to be. If we simply set our minds to embody these commands every time we pray “Thy will be done” we will have a lifetime of work ahead of us. It is God’s will that

• We live sexually pure lives: “For this is the will of God, your sanctification; that is, that you abstain from sexual immorality” (1 Thess. 4:3). Sanctification is a life of holiness devoted to glorifying God. A crucial part of sanctification is growth in sexual self-control. The reason for this is not to get hung-up on sex. Rather, this command recognizes that our sexual desires are generally the strongest desires we have to contend with. This strong desire must be countered by another strong desire – that of love to God. We combat desire with desire – a powerful passion to please God. When we resist sexual immorality we reveal how strong our desires for God actually are. This also improves the lives of those around us, for love is superior to lust in every possible way. Lust objectifies and uses people for one’s own purposes. Love honors and respects others and builds them up, regardless of the personal benefits (or lack thereof) to ourselves.
• We are peaceful, sensitive, good, joyful, prayerful, grateful people: “But we appeal to you, brothers and sisters, to respect those who labor among you, and have charge of you in the Lord and admonish you; esteem them very highly in love because of their work. Be at peace among yourselves. And we urge you, beloved, to admonish the idlers, encourage the faint-hearted, help the weak, be patient with all of them. See that none of you repays evil for evil, but always seek to do good to one another and to all. Rejoice always, pray without ceasing, give thanks in all circumstances; for this is the will of God in Christ Jesus for you” (1 Thess. 5:12-18). Joyful love expressed to leaders, fellow believers in all manner of personal situations, and all people is God’s will for the believing community.
• We willingly submit to authority: “For the Lord’s sake accept the authority of every human institution, whether of the emperor as supreme, or of governors, as sent by him to punish those who do wrong and to praise those who do right. For it is God’s will that by doing right you should silence the ignorance of the foolish” (1 Peter 2:13-15). This holds true for human government in general, and not just government that we prefer. Peter wrote this during the time that Nero ruled – and he (Nero) was hardly a paragon of virtue!
• We practice suffering love: “For it is better to suffer for doing good, if suffering should be God’s will, than to suffer for doing evil.… Therefore, let those suffering in accordance with God’s will entrust themselves to a faithful Creator, while continuing to do good” (1 Peter 3:17; 4:19). This is cruciform, suffering love – love that refuses to withhold love simply because it is not being returned.[4]

Understanding God’s will in this manner may not help with every decision of life (for this, we need a biblical view of discernment), but regardless of our choices, we will become the kind of people God wants us to be: pure, spiritual, grateful, humble, peaceful, hopeful, and loving! We will be kingdom people in a fallen world. Put most simply: We will love God with all our heart, soul, strength, and mind, and our neighbor as ourselves.

Conclusion

We must make the will of God a way of life. We must willingly choose to live God’s will where we presently are, and not excuse ourselves from it because of where we would like to be. This prevents us from using God’s will as an excuse for self-absorption. “Too many of us conclude in the face of difficulty and suffering that we must have made a choice outside the will of God. Then we spend the rest of our lives wishing that we had chosen differently. Ironically, we waste the opportunity we do have, however severe our circumstances, to do God’s will right where we are and to build our relationship with him.”[5]

Our difficulty is not in discovering the will of God but in doing it.[6] Gerald Sittser puts it starkly: “the weightiest choice we make [and we make it every day] is never between two future options… but between two ways of life, one for God, the other against God.”[7] We either live to please God – live God’s way – or to please selfish interests!

As always, Jesus is our pattern. Doing God’s will was food for his soul: “My food is to do the will of Him who sent me, and to accomplish His work” (John 4:34). He plainly stated, “I do not seek my own will, but the will of Him who sent me” (John 5:30; cf. 6:38-40). When we live as Jesus lived – for the will of God – then we experience a kinship with Jesus.[8] We share the same passion, the same heart, the same mission, for we serve the same purpose – the manifestation of the kingdom of God by living God’s will. Right here. Right now. In big decisions. But mostly in the small ones that make up the bulk of our daily lives.

© Richard J. Vincent, 2007