Finding God’s Will – Part 1

Many people wonder if they can know God’s will for certain. But before we can answer that, the first question we should ask is, Do we really want to know it?

Searching for God’s will can feel like a reluctant game of hide and seek as we hunt for those elusive answers.

We resort to flipping coins—heads or tails? We make decisions based on our feelings or impressions, and then hope it was the Lord’s leading and not the pepperoni pizza we had the night before. We run to a variety of people for advice, often seeking out those who will tell us what we want to hear. We may even follow Gideon’s example and put out a fleece to seek confirmation of God’s leading.

We can know God’s will with a certainty that comes, not from random opinions or flipped coins or even wet fleeces, but directly from His Word. Still, we come back to the foundational question, “Do we really want to know?

Do We Really Want to Know?

Do we really want to know God’s will for our lives? Before you roll your eyes at the absurdity of the question, think about it. What if God’s will is for us to persevere in our goals without achieving them?

Do we really want to know?

If we don’t want to know God’s will, He won’t force us to learn it. Psalm 25 reminds us that God guides the humble (v.9) and instructs those who fear Him (v. 12). Lewis Sperry Chafer, founder of Dallas Theological Seminary, once said, “His leading is only for those who are already committed to do as He may choose.”

One key to discovering God’s will is to seek it wholeheartedly, with an attitude of submission and willingness to line up our lives under God’s authority and direction, even if His will for us differs from our own plans.

Something else to consider is that God’s will is not always the mystery we may think it is. The Bible contains several clear statements about the will of God that apply to everyone.

1. The first thing we can be sure of is that God’s will for us is to glorify Him. In Isaiah 43:7, God tells us we are created to display His glory. Anything that does not bring glory to God cannot possibly be His will for our lives.
So can God trust us to glorify Him with our writing? Or does He know our ego will want to bask in the glory for ourselves?

2. We also know God wants “all people to be saved and to come to a knowledge of the truth” (2 Timothy 2:4).

3. Once we have entered into a relationship with our heavenly Father through His Son, God’s will for every believer is to live in a way that reflects this new relationship. The apostle Paul reminds us, “It is God’s will that you should be sanctified….For God did not call us to be impure, but to live a holy life” (1 Thess. 4:3-7).

4. This means that God’s will for our lives requires worshipping Him as living sacrifices. Rather than being conformed to the pattern of this world, He calls us to be transformed by the renewing of our minds so that we will know and prove His will in our lives (Rom. 12:1-2).
So are you and I willing to lay our dreams and goals on His altar? To surrender our life to His plans and purposes?

I’m not saying God won’t give us those things. But I am asking, Can He trust us with them?

Next week: Part 2, including methods God uses to reveal His will.