Freedom!

Ok, so I take way to long to write anything, much less edit and so on. So honestly expect that I'll get to the transformation stuff around February. I've taken a brief respite from theological trends and instead I've been trying to focus on discerning God's will for where in the world I should go and what I should do. There are a myriad of choices: many places, races, occupations and goals. How am I to know the right one? I was searching for a "calling", that mystical voice that comes from God that apparently everyone is supposed to receive. I've never got a very clear one. Nothing specific at least. However, God reminded me that my first calling is to obey Him. That's great but it sure doesn't put a dot on the map. If God has blueprint for my life, why isn't He showing me what exactly it is that He wants? Surely if I go off of the plan God wants for me, everything will function, but it will never be as good as it could have been. For example, say I was to return to South America, when actually God wants me to go to Cambodia. Then what, am I doomed to a life of Godly mediocrity? How am I supposed to know if I never hear anything?

Thankfully, I'm free from that erroneous train of thought and resulting paralysis. I listened to a series of sermons loaned to me by a friend at church about knowing God's will for our lives which challenged and encouraged. I'll try to line out the basics as clearly as possible.

First, when we talk of God's will, we are discussing different types of God's will that I had always assumed to be one in the same. However, there are different strains. First is God's Sovereign will which is God's plan for the universe. This includes the creation of the world, sending Jesus, and the end times. There isn't anything we can do at all to either hinder or make this will happen. God will carry out this will period. No one really knows much about this plan either, even Jesus doesn't know when He's coming back.

There is also God's moral will. This is the way He wants you and all people to act, live, worship etc. Obviously, God desires that all should be saved (come to repentance and knowledge of Him). Not all do, but He wants that. He wants us to love our neighbor as God has loved us. We don't always, but that is His will that we live that way. This is essentially what the Bible is, God's moral will for us. It may or may not be followed and as such is sometimes lumped into the category of God's permissive will, which is beyond the scope of this post and my brain.

Finally, there is God's individual will. This is the blueprint of your life that God laid out when He first thought of you. The place you would be born, the schools you would go to, the person you would marry, the jobs you would take; the whole life you would live, right down to paper or plastic. Now God has this blueprint for your life, but we can fall off the blueprint, ie marry the wrong person, or take the wrong job etc. If you fall off, things won't be nearly as good as they could have been. You're off God's will for you, and that isn't a fun place to be.

So the question comes down to this: How can I determine God's individual will for me? Obviously if one can do that then we can follow God and stick to His original plan. And God should want us to know it too since He made it specially for me. So then, how do I get the blueprint?

There is a very simple answer. Its so simple that most people miss it and keep looking in the dark. But after years of indecisiveness and pause, I finally got it. Here it is, THE ANSWER, THE WAY to know God's will for YOUR entire life, every decision comes down to this simple phrase:

you can't

What? Why not?

God does not have an individual will for you life.

???

If you are like me, at this point I pretty much blew the guy off and refused to listen to any of the other sermons. Even his general concept is wrong, God has to have a plan for my life, right?

No, God doesn't have to have anything for you. We take God so much for granted that we assume He's this magical blessing box that only wants our good. Truth is, God wants His own good and glory. And He is perfectly entitled to it. He's God. Never make God "safe". A God who's stuck in a cage where He can't break loose and get you is no God. That is a pet of your own making. I love the response of God to Job. First, He's talking out of a whirlwind. A tornado is pretty freaky; a talking tornado.... that's entering the "wet the britches" zone. Second, God, through this tornado, goes on and on about His creation. Hey Job, I made the ostrich stupid; it could crush its own eggs, it treats its young harshly. But I'm God, I can do that. Hey Job, I made the horse strong. Why? You won't know why, but I did, and its fearless. Hey Job, I made this thing called Leviathan that is uber powerful, massive beyond imagination, no one can tame it, it could kill you like a terrible two year old stamping on cheerios, and I'm going to talk about how strong it is for thirty four verses. Why? Because I can, I made it.

I think the point God is making to Job is that He cannot be tamed. He is more powerful than anything anyone could ever imagine. He does this by showing how weak Job is in comparison to merely the things God has made. No matter whether you understand or like it, He is infinitely more powerful than you. You can't run up to heaven and slap God around till He comes to your point of view. He is God and we are not. We must conform to Him and not Him to us. (Yet He lets us wrestle with Him. He breaks every definition, I love God for that!)

I'm pretty sure I've gone off on this before, but I feel that there is no fear of the Lord among the general Christian body. We've made God into this fluffy bunny when nothing could be farther from the truth. Grace and forgiveness means nothing from a bunny; it means everything coming from a whirlwind boasting about a creature that thrashes iron like straw and bronze like rotten wood (Job 41:27.)

But on to individual will. Beyond issues of why, how can anyone know that God does not have an individual will for our lives? There are many examples of people in the Bible who were told directly by God His "specific" will for their lives, but these people are the exception, not the rule. Beyond their examples, there are a myriad of verses that are pointed to as well that might be seen as proving that God does have a specific will for your life. Verses like Jeremiah 29:11 are always posted and quoted, but that verse is very specifically addressed to the captives from Jerusalem of the Babylonian invasion. Many of these verses are miss applied because the written word "you" does equal you sitting in the chair reading this. Yes, it does demonstrate something about God, but the specific message may or may not be for you.

What about Proverbs 3:5-6? The first chapter of Proverbs makes it clear that the whole book is a invitation and proclamation to anyone interested in gaining wisdom. The you's in this book are hopefully directed at you sitting there. So what does it mean that He will direct your paths or make them straight? First, paths is plural, but honestly it may not be in Hebrew and I don't know how to find that out, so take that lightly. But also if we are truly trusting God with all our hearts, we are in his moral will. If we do not lean on our own understanding or consider ourselves wise in our own eyes (v 7) we recognize God in all that we do. Wherever we are going, we know we have to go in the direction of God's understanding and our own humility. How do we know God's understanding: the Bible and the Holy Spirit and in some cases, words of prophecy or other direct means. These will show us God's moral will, and in very specific cases His will for us for one specific thing or another. But there is nothing concerning the comprehensive individual will. Nor are there verses that give insight into how to determine the will of God for an individual. There are exhortations that you know God's will, but these apply to His moral will. In summary, no where in the Bible is the concept of God's individual blueprint for your life laid out, and even more shocking is the complete paucity of how to find it.

At first, I found the lack of God's will for my life rather disconcerting. But the more I thought about it and had it explained, the more freeing it became. Currently I have no specific calling, but I don't need to wait for one either. I need to be humble and go in God's moral will, but within that I am free to choose wisely: the place to go, the activities/ministry to pursue, and so forth. Also, there is no fear of choosing the wrong path. Whatever path I get on, I know God will direct it. How freeing is that? I can trust in the Lord with all my heart; no matter where I am, God will direct me in that place.

All my life I've been reticent to choose anything since I could never tell if it was the will of God or not. Many times I found myself stuck agonizing in prayer and trying to discern anything. I remember one particular time I went on a hike just to be with God (which is always a good idea) and for some reason or another I thought God was trying to guide through some butterflies. I spent a good ten minutes chasing a butterfly that would double back, leave the path, and then land resting, only to repeat the cycle. I doubted and chastised myself for lack of faith and wondered, could this be real? Is this really God leading me? Looking back, I'm glad I trusted God that much that I was willing to scamper after tiny fluttering wings. Now I know that although He can lead that way, I am better off living for God and asking for His wisdom to guide me. The danger is not to fall prey to my own pride and understanding, but rather to continually humble myself. Not an easy task.

In the end, any decision within God's moral will is His will me. The question then becomes finding out (and I mean really finding out) what God's will is. This is where we must rely on God's wisdom and consider ourselves unwise. The pastor from the CD's offered these questions to ask when examining options in a decision. I'll add some of my own too:

Does this glorify God?
Does this seek the Kingdom of God?
Does this action love God?
Is this in the moral will of God? (Huge question with lots of subparts)
Are other people brought closer to God through this?
Will this cause anyone to stumble or have the appearance of wrongdoing?
Does this action love my neighbors?
Does this break any commitments I have to others?
Does this lead to the mistreatment/injustice/oppression of anyone? (Esp. important when considering a company of employment or purchases)
Does this alleviate the mistreatment/injustice/oppression of anyone?
Will this enslave me or destroy me in some way? (a much different question than will it be difficult)
Will I grow closer to God because of this?
Will this grow me or just let me stay where I'm at?
Do my gifts/experiences/desires fit?

If in a decision the answer to all those questions is the same between two options, pick whatever one you want and makes you happy. I can't believe I just wrote that, but that factor should be absolutely dead last in option determination, but I'm learning that pursuing happiness isn't necessarily a bad thing, except when its the only thing.

So in summary, I am no longer decisionaly handicapped. I can choose, with God's wisdom and choose quickly, without delay or worry. How amazing is that? God loves us so much that He lets us live, by His grace and wisdom, and be free to live for Him in who knows how many different paths. There is no worry about finding the right "one" to marry, the "one" place in the world to serve, the "one" ministry to carry out. God is big enough to hold it all together and let us seek Him with all of our hearts in all of our places. Be free to choose and be free to live!

Press on for Joy!

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UPDATE
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I think I've come to realize that calling can be different from God's individual will for your life. God may or may not give you a very specific calling (ie go to Burma and work as lumberjack) but everyone is called by one sense or another by God. The specifics of living out that calling are the details that require humility, seeking God with a pure and devoted heart, and making wise decisions. Isaiah 30:1-5. How to find your calling? You'll know when you are totally and completely devoted, submitted, and wildly in love with God . . . to the point where you will go and work towards whatever it is He calls you to, specific or general.