In this day and age, with the pace of technology driving our lives ever faster and faster until the days of our lives pass us by in a whirl of color and sound, we may have difficulty in determining what God’s will is for each of us as individuals. This is not the fault of God, who always gives us clear direction, but ours. We too often let His message to us become drowned out in the workaday worries and invariably small distractions (though they might not seem so at the time they’re occurring) that crop up to bedevil us on a seemingly unending basis. How then, can we know what His will is for us? Read on to see how we can figure that out.
To begin to understand what God’s will for us is, we must first cut through a clutter of distractions. It is a certainty that God wishes for all of us to do certain things. We know He wishes that we love each other as we love Him, which is easy enough to figure out, after all. But what about the times when we are faced with a momentous and possibly life-changing (or not) decision? In instances like this, we need to find a way to figure out what He means for us to do.
As Christians, there are a couple of questions we must pose to ourselves, which will help us to discern God’s will. In what way can we chop through the haze and fog and figure out what He means for us to do? Well, the first thing we need to determine is that whatever it is we’re contemplating doing isn’t forbidden by the Bible. Secondly, we need to always ensure that what we may be doing in the near future is something that will bring glory to God and help us grow in a spiritual way. Remember, though, that even if these two questions can be answered satisfactorily, it may be that we might not receive the answer we’re looking for, at least for the moment.
God’s answer to our questions about what His will is for us might not be a direct response. In fact, in most instances, God chooses not to answer us in such a direct manner, as if He were something to be conjured from a burning bush on a nearby mountain (as He did in the Old Testament). To be realistic, that simply isn’t the way He works with us anymore (in most cases). Unfortunately, though, we sometimes make the mistake of asking God to tell us what to do at every given moment, and this isn’t the manner in which God has ordered our lives. Instead, He allows us to make informed choices – using our free will – about many things, such as marriage and the like. But He is there, talking to us, if only we have the courage to really listen.
The key in learning to discern what God’s plan is for us is to walk closely by his side, with righteousness in our hearts. Paul, in a portion of his letter to the Romans (Romans 12:2, NIV), tells us that when we renew our minds with pure love for God, it will become much easier for us to learn his will. For a fact, the only decision God does NOT want us to make is the decision to turn to sin or fight against His will. We can look back at Psalm 37:4 (NIV) for reassurance that if we delight ourselves in the Lord, “He will give us the desires of our hearts.” It is these words which can give us the ultimate guidance as to how to know God’s will for each of us individually.
