Recently, I have handled a number of questions from friends and acquaintances asking about "God's will for their life" with a particular emphasis on jobs and vocation. Does God have a specific job he wants you to do, or a specific company He wants you to work for?
The question is closely tied to the common Christian assumption, widely held today, that God has some special blueprint for your life; where you will live, who you will marry, what job you will have, etc., etc,. Certainly God knows all of these things, but the question is whether God is making these decisions for you and if you need to figure out what His choices are before you can make a move.
Does God have this blueprint for you and He's dropping little hints here and there, trying to get you to figure out what He wants you to do? Personally, I have a hard time thinking of a more hurtful or confusing teaching within the mainstream Christian Church today than this one.
Having studied the Bible with the same questions in mind, I found that the Bible communcates God's will in two different and distinct ways; what many have come to refer to as "God's Sovereign Will," and "God's Moral Will:"
God's Sovereign Will: What God designs or decrees. We can only discover what God's sovereign will is in two ways, through hindsight and through what is revealed in scripture. We see what happened yesterday and realize that what occured did so by God's sovereign will. God establishes rulers and authorities, kings and kingdoms; He has supreme authority overeverything that happens. It is God's sovereign will that lost be condemned and the saved be sanctified and redeemed; we see this in scripture. There are a number of prophesies in scripture which inform us of God's sovereign will for the future. That said, the vast majority of the time we don't have access to God's sovereign will for the purpose of decision making.
God's Moral Will: What God desires. This tells us how we should live: that we should submit ourselves to His authority, that we should live righteously and not sin. God's Moral will is completely revealed to us in Scripture. It does not give individual guidence to Christians, but applies to all Christains equally.
As far as what many Christians call "God's Individual Will" for each one of us, I can't find that taught anywhere in scripture. I know of many passages which are used to justify such a teaching, but when read in context they don't actually have anything to do with such an "Individual Will". It appears clear from the Bible that God doesn't decide things like occupation, spouse, and living location for us, He dignifies us with the responsibility of making significant choices ourselves.
Please don't misunderstand, I am not saying that God doesn't care about the decisions that we make, but that he allows us to make the decisions that are best for us, and is pleased with our choices as long as they are in accordance with His moral will as revealed in scripture. As far as how to apply God's will to your life, it really is very simple: The Bible doesn't tell us where we should live, but what kind of neighbor we should be. It doesn't tell us what job we should take, but what kind of employee or employer we should be. It doesn't tell us who we should marry, but what kind of spouse we should be. The Bible doesn't tell us who we should have a freind, but what kind of friend we should be.
In short, if you think that you need to change occupations...DO IT! If you truly desire to honor God, you will honor him whether you decide to stay in your current position, or leave to do something new, as long as your decision is in line with His moral will as clearly communicated in the Bible.
4 comments:
I agree with you. This is perhaps one of the most misunderstood issues for Christian. However, I think that one thing could be added to this post. Even if God does not have a blueprint for your life, he definitely does give guidance. Scripturally, this can be seen in the life of Paul, Jonah, and numerous other characters. I agree that God is far more concerned with how we live than with what we do, but sometimes God intervenes in our lives or maybe just hints at what we should do (for our benefit, of course) so that we will be more effective. I believe that God still expresses his sovereign will today.
You are absolutely right to point out that God has and does provide specific guidance to some individuals from time to time. In referencing Paul and Jonah, I must assume that you are referring to direct, supernatural commands from God to these men to go to specific places and do specific things. This kind of communication is seen over and over in the Bible (this is a tautological statement as the Bible, almost by definition, is a record of God speaking directly to individuals).
I would like to point out two things regarding potential specific directions from God:
1. God certainly has, and I imagine He still does, provide detailed direction to individuals from time to time. However, there are several hallmarks of this type of divine communication found in the Bible when we read about God’s communication with people (such as Paul and Jonah):
a. The communication is Uninvited. The ones who receive these communications are never the initiators of them.
b. The communication is Clear. The ones who receive such communication are never left scratching their heads, wondering whether they heard from God or if they had just been having an internal dialogue with themselves.
c. They are Supernatural. God breaks into their routine in a way is impossible to ignore. For Paul, this was a blinding light and an audible voice (which even his fellow travelers heard, but couldn’t understand), for Moses it was a burning bush. Every time the Bible relates a direct communication from God there always seems to be a supernatural element, either in the form of the communication or in another related phenomena that puts God’s seal on the communication, so to speak.
d. The direction is often contrary to Wisdom. If the course of action that God commands were generally understood as the wise course of action, there would be no reason for Him to break in and give the direction, as His followers should already be heading in that direction on their own.
e. Finally, once given, the command becomes Morally Obligatory for the one to whom the command was given. To not obey the direction of God in such a instance would be, for that individual, a serious sin (take Jonah as the case study in this).
2. The (very very very very) commonly taught idea that God “whispers” to us, or drops hints about a desired course of action is not found in the Bible. Not only is such an idea not taught, but there is not even a single example of such a thing occurring.
Of course, many people point to 1 Kings 19:13 (Elijah in Desert and the still small voice) to support the idea that God will speak to us via internal hints and nudges that we need to train ourselves to listen for. This is a misrepresentation of the passage. How does God communicate with Elijah? It’s not a “still small nudge” or a “still small impression,” it’s a “still small VOICE.”
The issue of God’s will and the nature of His communication of that will to his followers is one of my biggest problems with the church today. I don’t know of any other item of belief that is taught so frequently (across all denominational lines), and accepted so universally by Christians, which so completely lacks any kind of scriptural support as this issue of God’s Will and Christian decision making.
P.S. If anyone would like to understand this issue better, please check out one of my favorite books, Decision Making and the Will of God: A Biblical Alternative to the Traditional View, or if the 500+ pages of complete with lengthy exegesis of all Biblical passages on the subject seems daunting, check out Greg Koukl’s Lectures on the topic by the same name: Decision Making and the Will of God.
Hi dear. Dinner was too noisy, so I'm posting here. I think you are right in pointing out that we have lots of examples of God speaking audibly, clearly, directly to people in the Bible.
My biggest problem with this when I first heard it a while ago was that all my life I've believed the Christian way of approaching issues in general is to pray something like this, "Dear God, I need direction in (blank). Please show me what you want me to do." And then I would think, "gee, it's be nice if He'd just speak to me out loud." but not really expect it. I would then look for the answer in hint-form. And these could be just about anything encountered in my day. Ones that seemed to relat to the issue I would notice and puzzle over for a long time before deciding if it was really God speaking or just coincidence. It's hard to know.
And THAT's the problem. I know God COULD use a note sent by a friend to guide my decision, but I think what you're saying in the original post is that we just don't see examples of that type of answer in the Bible. And when taking the liberty of teaching about God or explaining how he works, it's pretty presumptious to add details He didn't originally include in the Bible.
I'd be interested in seeing a post and discussions on prayer in general, if you have time. Because before thinking this through a while back, a good majority of my prayers were for guidance in the way talked about above. I can see that it is a sloppy way of praying now, but at first I wasn't sure quite what to do with my need for wisdom when praying.
Anyhoo, long comment! Sorry!
-Faith
Hey Tim!
Sorry I just jumped in with that long response without even saying hello! Let me fix that mistake now: HELLO, how is Kansas?
In case you hadn't noticed, you touched on a nerve with me. I have deep disagreements with modern evangelical Christianity on the issue of God's Will and the way it is communicated to us. I always have. But it wasn't until about two years ago, after I started listening to a series of lectures by Greg Koukl (founder of Stand to Reason) that I was really able to put my finger on the nature of my disagreements.
Seeing as you hit on a hot with me, I think I am going to put up a post with my thoughts on the Will of God and general Christian application of my understanding for discussion.
Anyway, thanks for the comment!
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