You Can't Screw Up God's Will

[The Midweek Encounter is a ministry of Encounter Church in Kentwood, MI. These posts are reflections on Sunday's message, which can be heard here each week: http://myencounterchurch.org/#/messages-media]


Every time I hear a sermon or read an article or book about finding God’s will, I hope that this will be the one that makes it clear for me once and for all. Yet even as we after hearing about the importance of knowing God’s word, of surrounding ourselves with people who will give us godly advice, and learning how to seek God’s perspective on things, the decisions we face in our everyday lives can still seem cloudy. Which job should I take, or should I go back to school? Is this the right school for my child or would they do better at that one? Should I stay in Grand Rapids or move somewhere else? If we apply all the good tactics Pastor Dirk has been talking about for the past few weeks, we can still be looking at these decisions with concern that we’ll make the wrong choice.

When I’m looking through the Bible for advice on God’s will, the book of Nehemiah is not typically where I’d land. But I think it works. God clearly gave Nehemiah a task: Rebuild the wall. So Nehemiah became singularly focused on that task. Everything he did he compared back to his ultimate goal: Will this help me rebuild the wall, or won’t it? Once Nehemiah had his eyes set on his goal, the other decisions became easier.

We likely don’t have any giant walls to rebuild, but on a large level, if we call ourselves followers of Jesus and are seeking to live and love more like him, our ultimate remains the same as we go through out our lives. We are to love and serve the Lord our God with all our heart, soul, and mind, and to love our neighbors as we love ourselves.

While I’m absolutely on board with loving and serving God as my ultimate mission in life, there’s still something in me that balks at the idea of that being the magic bullet answer to all my life problems. I can love God well in the house where I currently live, and I can love him well if I live somewhere else—but that still doesn’t tell me where I’m supposed to live. If God has a plan for my life, why won’t he just clue me in on what that is, down to the little details that keep me up at night?

Maybe we sometimes unnecessarily complicate finding the will of God. If we’re keeping our ultimate task in mind, we can’t screw up God’s will as much as we think we can. Like Nehemiah, we can compare all of our choices back to the task God has given us and try to remain singularly focused on that. If one choice clearly takes us away from looking more like Jesus, that one is automatically out.

And the rest? If they’re all pretty evenly aligned with their potential for loving and serving God, then we use the tools God has given us for discerning his will—knowing his word, praying for guidance, and seeking advice from trustworthy people—and we make the best decision we can. But we don’t have to worry so much about choosing something that’s “out of God’s will” if it isn’t clearly going to impede our ability to live out our ultimate task. In the face of our everyday decisions over which job we take, school we pick, or city we live in, God’s will will happen just as he meant it to.


[Brianna DeWitt believes in Jesus, surrounding yourself with good people, and that desserts are best when they involve chocolate and peanut butter. She writes about faith, growing up, and whatever else pops into her head on her own blog, and tweets (largely about food) at @bwitt722.]

How to Seek God's Will

[The Midweek Encounter is a ministry of Encounter Church in Kentwood, MI. These posts are reflections on Sunday's message, which can be heard here each week: http://myencounterchurch.org/#/messages-media]

The past few weeks at Encounter, we’ve been looking for God’s will. Pastor Dirk keeps finding it…in the Bible. Whether it’s the general guiding principles, where to turn for advice, or how to gain some perspective, the Word of God is the source and anchor for seeking His will.

I know that God’s word is truth, and is full of everything I need. So why do I often spend more of my time reading Facebook? Watching random TV shows I don’t even like that much? Strolling through the internet looking for instructions on how to build a retaining wall, yet ending up with plans to build a strawberry tower (that is two hours of my week I’m not getting back)? Perhaps you’re more disciplined than I am, but I have great intentions to read my Bible, yet my time is “stolen” by so many lesser things.

Photo Credit: Flickr User compujeramy, Creative Commons

Every so often, Facebook or my email update their policies, so they helpfully invite me to peruse them; I have to click agree if I want to continue using the program. It turns out there are important disclosures in there, like how they’re going to borrow my information and sell it to other companies, and other things I should probably know. 

Have you ever read any of the policies that you have to click “agree” to?  Confession time: I don’t.  I bypass the ones from social media services, or the manifestos that appear while I’m installing programs on my computer and phone; I scan like a hawk for the “Agree” button, and move on with life. I know I should read these disclosures – but I lack thirty free minutes and a law degree (I know that’s just an excuse…but don’t pretend you read them all either!).

We are beyond blessed to live in a time when the Word of God is so available – I have a copy next to me right now that I can freely read, I can read it on my phone or on my computer – I can even read in different translations and, if I were so educated or inclined, different languages! I embraced early on that Christians believe the whole Bible – every word is inspired from God (2 Timothy 3:16). I went ahead and clicked “agree” to the Bible…long before I had ever studied even a fraction of it.

But like all of those long disclosure agreements, if I’m going to claim that I accept and believe it – I should consider myself on the hook to get into it and know it, to hear from God in His Words, and to obey them.  It’s wonderful to accept it as truth, but I also need to know what that truth is!

I have sought Your face with all my heart; be gracious to me according to Your promise.  I have considered my ways and have turned my steps to Your statues.  Psalm 119:58-59 NIV

Psalm 119 is a beautiful (very, very long) proclamation of love for God’s word. In these two particular verses, the author recognizes that his ways – his will or his plans - were not in line with the ways of God. How did he discover the ways of God? The other 174 verses in the psalm would suggest that he knew them by being all up in the word of God: “Your word is a lamp to my feet and a light to my path,” he says in verse 105, and “Direct my footsteps according to your word.” (verse 133)

When we read the Bible to meet God, to hear from Him and learn His ways, it’s going to wrinkle our brains and alter our perspective on life. God sees from an eternal, unlimited perspective while we have only our peephole perspective on the whole thing; His ways might make sense to us, or they might also blow our minds. But if we never seek His perspective, if we never let the truth of His word saturate our minds and hearts, lifting us up out of this dark world to see with His light, then we will only be seeking our will, our way, our path based on our desires, our motivations, and our perspectives.

The Bible is a serious, sometimes overwhelming undertaking (have you ever noticed how many pages there are?!), and it takes some effort to read; but knowing God and having him change my perspective takes more than hearing someone talk about the Bible once a week, or hanging out with people who I assume are reading the Bible. God has gifted us with His Word, and He wants us to dig in, immerse and saturate ourselves in it, and get to know Him.

Maybe you’re so in love with the Word that this long winded thought has served only as a reminder of our commitment to God’s Word.  Or, maybe you’re feeling the motivation to crack open that beautiful Bible you have.  Either way, God wants us to know Him, to get out of our self-seeking worldly perspective and be lifted up to catch a glimpse of what He sees. He wants to speak to us, and to change us. He wants us to know His will!

Your statues are wonderful; therefore I obey them.  The unfolding your Your words gives light; it gives understanding to the simple.Psalm 119:129-130

[Robin Bupp is married to Caleb, and they are from many places east of the Mississippi (but are calling Michigan home for the foreseeable future). A former high school science teacher, Robin is slowly turning the two Bupp kiddos into tiny nerds while they teach her lots of things, including humility and patience.] 

The Best Advice for Finding God's Will

[The Midweek Encounter is a ministry of Encounter Church in Kentwood, MI. These posts are reflections on Sunday's message, which can be heard here each week: http://myencounterchurch.org/#/messages-media]

Making decisions is not my strong suit. Even something as seemingly simple as buying a pack of pens can take me a very, very long time. What color(s) of ink do I want? Fine point or medium? Can I justify a 10-pack, or should I stick with 5?

Fortunately, I’m usually able to make these types of decisions on my own, but anything much more important than that and I’m tempted to start calling reinforcements. Which sounds like a good idea, but as we learned on Sunday, we have to be careful who we take our advice from. 

Photo Credit: Flickr User Dean Hochman, Creative Commons

At first, it seems like King Rehoboam is being wise about his decision making. When the people of Israel go to him, he doesn’t answer immediately—he tells them to come back in three days, after he’s had time to think it over. Next, he consults the elders who had served his father Solomon—so far so good. Unfortunately, he doesn’t like their advice, and here’s where he takes a wrong turn in decision making. The next people he asks are his friends, who likely were concerned about staying in good standing with him, and not necessarily about what was best for the people of Israel.

When it comes to finding the will of God, it’s not just about knowing the “top-level” truths laid out in the Bible, or just taking the time (as much as is realistically possible, anyway) to seek out advice—it’s about seeking advice in the right places.

In her book Bittersweet, Shauna Niequist writes about the idea of the “home team.” She writes:

Everybody has a home team: it’s the people you call when you get a flat tire or when something terrible happens. It’s the people who, near or far, know everything that’s wrong with you and love you anyway. The home team people are the ones you can text with five minutes’ notice, saying, I’m on my way, and I’m bringing tacos.

She goes on to write about the importance of being there for the people who matter most, but I think her concept of the “home team” applies to the people we turn to for advice as well. Who are the people who know us, love us, and care about our well-being?

Here’s where we need to be careful though. Rehoboam probably liked his friends. I Kings 12:10 describes them as having grown up with him, which implies they had known each other for a long time, and probably knew each other quite well. But their advice was terrible. It’s possible that people we like and who like us in return can still give crappy advice.

Yet we can seek to make sure we have a “home team” though by actively pursuing Christian community, in all its many forms. It might include immediate or extended family, a pastor or other spiritual mentor, friends, Bible study members, and any other people who will give us admirable advice.  These aren’t relationships we develop instantaneously, but must be willing to commit to with the long, good work of developing trust and allowing others to speak truth into our lives.

Even after we have these good people in our lives, how do we figure out the bad advice versus the good advice? The answer is the same one that caused my shoulders to slump last week: the Bible. This time though, I’m a little more on board with it. While the Bible still doesn’t have our life plans written out in specific terms, it does have some pretty great principles that course through it.

When we get advice, we can compare it to what we’ve learned through studying the Bible. Does it point us back to Christ and to the way he lived his life? Does it promote love, mercy, patience, justice, peace? Do the people on our “home team” who are giving us advice have our good in mind, while also considering the effects our decision will have on the people around us? Are they willing to ask us hard questions that make us fully think through the decision we’re about to make? Making big decisions likely still won’t be easy, but we can make it easier by having people around us who we can depend on to give us wise counsel. 

[Brianna DeWitt believes in Jesus, surrounding yourself with good people, and that desserts are best when they involve chocolate and peanut butter. She writes about faith, growing up, and whatever else pops into her head on her own blog, and tweets (largely about food) at @bwitt722.]