My Journey Toward a New Understanding Of God’s Will

All of the thinking I have done about my life and what direction to take has me thinking about God’s will for my life. This is a big subject to tackle and I am still wrestling with it. I guess the problem is that I had always assumed that God had my whole life planned out for me and it was my job to decipher what God wanted me to do.

Maybe you know the feeling. Like God has this one person that you have to marry or you will be miserable for the rest of your life.

Or God has your career picked out for you and you have to figure out what it is or you will never be doing what God really wants you to do.

The list could go on and on. I used to spend a lot of time praying to discover God’s will for my life, painfully looking at every decision and terrified that if I made the wrong decision that my life would never be pleasing to God. Or at least it wouldn’t be as pleasing as it could be.

What if that’s not the way it should be? Now I do think it is good to pray about decisions and make sure that what we are doing is going to bring glory to God. But what if our lives are not some sort of math equation to be solved or some treasure map to follow.

Maybe God’s will is much simpler than all of this.

What if what God really wants is a people who follow him?

What if God’s will is as simple as the fact that he wants a people that follow him and who will work for his kingdom?

What if God doesn’t have your life all micromanaged out to the smallest detail?

What if you could be doing God’s will in one of a hundred different careers?

What if you there were several different people you could marry and be completely happy with?

How would all of this make you feel?

I’ve been trying to think of anywhere in Scripture where it says that God has everything planned out for us. I know that someone will probably bring up Jeremiah 29:11: “For I know the plans I have for you,” declares the LORD, “plans to prosper you and not to harm you, plans to give you hope and a future.” This sure sounds like God has everything planned out for us. Until we look at the verse in context and realize that God is talking to the exiles from Jerusalem who have been taken to Babylon after the siege in 586 BC. These verses speak to a very specific group of people that God promises to be faithful to. This isn’t God saying that he has everything planned out for every one of us.

(I know that there are other verses which speak of God’s will but it would take much too long to examine them all here. If there is a verse that stands out to you feel free to bring it up in the comment section and we can discuss it there).

My view on God’s will for my life has changed after all of this recent thinking about my life. I do believe that God does call certain people and have special tasks for them. But I don’t think that this happens for everyone. I also think that you can blatantly disobey God and disregard his will for your life, but once again I think God’s will is more broadly defined than we sometimes think.

God has this huge kingdom that is breaking into our world. God is working to make things right in our world. God’s will is that we would join with him in this work.

Maybe it doesn’t matter exactly how or what you do as you work in God’s kingdom, just so long as you are working with him.

Maybe that’s all God’s will for you is. That leaves things wide open. That’s real freedom.

Or maybe I am completely wrong. But I really think I might be on to something here.

Let me know what you think in the comments below.