God's Will: Can We Be In the Know or Are We Flying Blind?

Ask almost any Christian about God’s will, and you will get some responses in common. You will likely hear many people wax eloquent about how important it is for one to seek and do God's will. You will not be short of believers who readily acknowledge that God has a plan and purpose - a will - for their individual lives. In fact, most every Christian you speak with would likely agree that God has a will for everyone.

But you would likely find few people that could give clear and definite answers on how to discover God's will for one's life. Fewer still would be able to confidently say that they have both discovered God's will and are joyfully living it out.

One thing all of us can agree on, however, is that it is hard to please someone if you are unsure of what that person wants. Men, if you are married, have you ever completely misjudged what it was your wife wanted? Students know how real the struggle is when they complete an assignment thinking they knew what the teacher wanted, only to find out that they missed the mark completely.

In one of my college classes, we had two large projects to complete. One of them was creating a discipleship course. I worked on that thing for a long time. I thought outside the box and created a website-based course. Each person would get a log in and they would go through courses, answering questions, and at the end of each course would take a test. There was a function allowing them to communicate with the teacher, as well as allowing them to be logged on at the same time to go through the classes. It took forever to set up each subsequent lesson. When it came time to turn the project in, I had very little to turn in. One sheet of paper, actually, with a website and log-in information. I felt great.

I got a D+ on the project, and I still remember what was written on the paper: “Discipleship needs to be done one-on-one. No one would sit on a computer to do this.”

Personally, I think that if time has proven anything, it is that while I may have been ahead of the curve, I certainly wasn’t wrong. Even major corporations are now doing their training based on computer classes. But here is the point of this story: I did the assignment based on the information that I had, but I got a terrible grade because of information that I didn’t know, and couldn’t have known.

Some people view God’s will like that. They go through life doing what they think is the best that they can, and feeling like they are failing all the time because of things that they cannot possibly know. But that isn’t how the will of God works. And it certainly is not His will for His children to wander through life aimlessly.

The will of God, in its simplest terms, is God’s plan for conforming me into the image of His Son, Jesus Christ. And since Jesus said in Mark 3:35 that "whosoever shall do the will of God, the same is my brother, and my sister, and mother," it is important that we know how to do God's will.

The Bible is the place to find out. The Bible is the most important factor in determining God’s will for our life, and yet, sadly, it is many times the last place that we go for help and guidance.

The Bible tells us some very specific things about God’s will:

• God has a definite will for your life (Psalm 32:8, 37:23; Ephesians 2:10).
• God desires you to know His will for your life (Ephesians 5:15-17).
• God’s will is continuous. It doesn’t stop when we are old, or begin only at a certain age (Isaiah 58:11).
• God's will is specific (Isaiah 30:18-21; Proverbs 15:19).
• God’s will is satisfying and profitable (Joshua 1:7-9; Psalm 1:1-6).

Although each of us will have a different path through life, there are at least four things that are included in God’s will for every single believer:

1. Increase your knowledge of God (Colossians 1:9-10).
2. Grow in grace (1 Thessalonians 4:3).
3. Study the Word (2 Timothy 3:14-17).
4. Share your faith (Acts 1:8).

Ultimately, each of us is going to be held responsible for knowing and following God’s plan for our life.

So, what about it? Are you studying the Word in order to increase your knowledge of God? You cannot know His will if you do not know Him. Are you striving to grow in grace? The fruit of the Spirit is grown in us through the Word and the influence of the Holy Spirit. Are you studying the Word and applying it to life? Are you sharing your faith? These four things are the start of God’s will for each and every believer.

I do not believe that He will reveal more of His will if we are not following the part of His will that we do know. It is extremely early in a brand new year. Don't waste time in 2023 living aimlessly. Get in God's Word, discern His will, and boldly live on mission this year!