UGW Q22: So What, Ultimately, is God's Will?

(This "Understanding God's Will" series starts at the bottom of the list with the post, "Understanding God's Will Intro Part 1") 

            22.  So what is the Will of God, according to the Bible?  And how do I find the next step in His plan for me?   

            Well, I’m glad you asked.  But do you really want to know?  Because once you know then you have a decision to make: obey or disobey.  And doing God's Will is not a simple, quick thing.  It’s a life-long, life-altering discipline.  And that’s part of the problem because we want simple jobs with quick and massive rewards.  We want to put in the least amount of effort and get the most benefits possible.  We want Him to open the doors, but we don’t want any responsibilities.  We want freedom, but no consequences.

UGW Q21: Will He Lead Where I Don't Want to Go?

            21.  Will He take me somewhere I don’t want to go or make me follow His Will if I don’t want to? 

            Yes and no.  Yes, He did drag Jonah to Nineveh, but I don’t think He generally sends along “big fishes” to drag us, kicking and screaming, to places we don’t want to go.  I believe that His typical way is not “a big fish,” but to pursue, challenge, call, and convict us.  He will knock on the doors of our hearts and ask us to go with Him.  And when He does call us to something we don’t like, if we will remain in Him, be obedient, and focus on Him and His glory, our feelings will eventually get in line.  But He does allow us to rebel and to be hard-hearted, if we choose.  And I think it breaks His heart and grieves Him when we do.  He wants so much more for us than we want for ourselves.

UGW Q20: What if I Missed the Path?

            20.  What if I missed the path that God wanted me to take? 

            Get on the new path!  I think that it is indeed possible to miss the first and best path that God wants us to take, by our refusing to obey and follow Him or by our negligence.  And I think this happens more than we realize.  But God is a wise, sovereign God and He can see how any situation can be turned into good.  And He’s always opening up new paths.  So I would say that if you feel that you’ve missed an opportunity or a path that you knew God wanted you to take, don’t dwell on it.  This prevents you from being of further use to Him.

UGW Q19: What if I Pray for the Wrong Things?

            19.  What if what I’m praying for is not God’s Will or plan for me?  What do I do?  Like the Israelites begging for and getting meat (Numbers 11), could I end up getting what I ask for as sort of a punishment?  

            I wondered about this one, too.  If I was asking and asking for something that God didn’t want to give me, would He end up giving it to me because I begged so much, but then there would be a punishment attached to it?  That’s how I felt as I pleaded with God for a house.  I mean, that’s like what happened to the Israelites, right?  Or is it?

UGW Q18: Our Responsibilities

            18.  You keep saying that we have responsibilities in getting God’s Will done?  What kinds of responsibilities? 

            I’ve already gone through many of them, but if you read the Bible, you’ll find lots more.  Because as I said before, His Will is a Verb.  It's more about the way we live in obedience to Him than it is about finding His plan for our life. 

UGW Q17: But God Can't Change His Mind

            17.  But what about the Bible verse that says that God can’t change His mind? 

            1 Samuel 15:29 says, “He who is the Glory of Israel does not lie or change his mind; for he is not a man, that he should change his mind.”  I grew up believing this as a simple fact about the nature of God: He is incapable of changing His mind.  It made sense.  I mean, if He knows all things and knows what’s best for all things and always does what’s best in all things, then, of course, we can’t change His mind.  How could we talk Him into something other than what He’s going to do?

UGW Q14 and 15: Does God Force Nations to Sin? Is He Sovereign?

            14.  So what about in the Old Testament when we read things like God sending a nation to destroy another nation as a punishment, but then He turns around and punishes the nation that He just used as a tool of discipline?  How could He cause this - force a nation to be His tool of discipline - and then punish them for it?  Isn’t that unfair?

            I have a hard time understanding this, too, to be honest.  I’m not totally sure how He works or how much free-will overriding He does here.  But keeping in mind His justness, His sovereignty, His fairness, and His decision to allow us free-will (and the consequences), this is the best way I can understand it.

UGW Q16: Can We Change God's Mind?

            16.  Can we change God’s mind with our prayers? 

            Yes and No.  There are Old Testament examples of people who pleaded with God in prayer to not apply a punishment that He said He would do.  And as a consequence of their intercessory prayers, God relents and doesn’t do what He said He’d do.  It seems to me that the times that He has changed His mind in the Bible were almost all because of appeals to His merciful side, to spare the people the terrible consequences of their sins.

UGW Q13: Am I Limiting God's Power?

            13.  But aren’t you limiting God’s power when you say that He’s not in total control of everything?

            No, I don’t think so.  And yes, He is in control of everything as far as everything that happens to us has to go through Him first.  And I am not saying that He’s not all-powerful.  I believe that He is indeed all-powerful.  If He chose to wipe out the earth in a second, He could.  He could do whatever He wants to do.  But I don’t think that He does do whatever He wants to do.  Because I think that when He created the world, He decided to make man with a free-will that He (generally) will not override, even though He can.

UGW Q12: God Works All Things for Good

            12.  I used to take comfort in the fact that God does whatever He wants to do and that God causes everything to happen for a reason.  But if that’s not the case, what then? 

UGW Q11d: Bad Things Beyond Our Responsibility

            Now, I’ve just been talking about the bad things that happen as a result of our own actions and choices.  But what about the bad things that happen that we had no responsibility for: tornadoes, getting hit by a drunk driver, being wronged by someone, the loss of loved ones, etc.?  Does God make these things happen for a reason?

UGW Q11c: Deliberate Ignorance

            Now, that’s all about the first main problem that we need a wake-up call in.  And here’s the other - deliberate ignorance.  Deliberate ignorance not only affects our economy because we choose to deliberately ignore the fact that we spend more than we make, but it also affects the health of our minds and bodies and society as a whole.

            When it comes to our minds, I think that many of us do not give much thought to what we allow into them.  We choose to be ignorant of the effects of the things that we shouldn’t be watching, reading, listening to, and thinking about.  And we excuse it with, “It won’t affect me.”

UGW Q11b: Marriage Trouble

            I think that we as a society need a wake-up call in two major areas.  (There are many more, but I’m only referring to two here that are on my heart).  Our constant selfish search for satisfaction outside of God’s marriage design, and our “deliberate ignorance” when it comes to the harmful things that we allow into our homes, our minds, our food, our bodies, our children’s bodies, etc. 

UGW Q11a: Do Things Happen for a Reason?

            11.  But don’t you think that God could’ve caused bad things to happen for a reason, even if He didn’t really want them to happen?  

            Sometimes, maybe.  I wish that I could say no . . . and yes.  No, because I don’t want to think that God causes bad things to happen.  And yes, because I want to believe that all bad things have a purpose and that He is in total control.  It makes the bad things a lot easier to face then.  (And for the record, I think that our view of what’s “bad” can and does differ from God’s.  Our perspective is so, so cloudy and flawed compared to God’s.) 

UGW Q10: Bad Things Happen

            10.  Can things happen that God doesn’t want to happen?  

            Obviously, yes!  We fell, didn’t we?  We introduced death and sin into the human race and the world.  I bring up this question because people want to know why God would allow evil if God is all-powerful and can stop it.  And the answer is because He doesn’t use His power to override our choices and the consequences of our choices.  And so bad things happen because of us and because of Satan and his kingdom.  (Funny thing is, we don’t want God’s interference when things are going good and going our way, but we sure want His “interference” when they aren’t.) 

UGW Q9i: Still Waiting for an Answer

            So how long do we continue to hang in there and pray for something that doesn’t seem to be happening?  When it seems like God is not listening and it hurts us to have to plead again about a certain request?  I’ve pleaded with God for things that haven’t happened or that seemed a long time in coming.  And this is the best advice I can offer right now.  If you have gone through all the steps above and God is still not answering, hang in there and keep praying about a concern until one of five things happens.  Until . . .

UGW Q9h: Summing Up Effective Prayer

            After really searching the Word for verses on prayer, I’m beginning to believe that God doesn’t just answer prayer based on how much faith we have and on whether or not we claim that it will happen ahead of time.  Yes, we need faith.  That is a necessity.  But it’s not about “performing” or about jumping through hoops to prove how much faith we have.  It’s about the condition of our lives and hearts, about our relationship with Him and with others, and about how closely we are walking with Him and living in His love.  Do we have faith in Him to handle our request?  And no matter how He chooses to answer, do we have enough faith in Him as a good, loving Father to remain close to Him and to praise Him?

UGW Q9g: Other Convicting Verses

            Now, that’s a lot to take, I know!  But . . . there’s more!  If we really want to examine what sins we might be harboring in our hearts, we would be wise to consider these verses. 

            Here’s one for husbands.  1 Peter 3:7:  “Husbands, in the same way be considerate as you live with your wives, and treat them with respect as the weaker partner and as heirs with you of the gracious gift of life, so that nothing will hinder your prayers.”  The degree to which we treat others with consideration and respect, particularly regarding a husband’s treatment of his wife in this verse, is the degree to which our prayers are unhindered.

            And here are three that scare me:

            Proverbs 21:13:  “If a man shuts his ears to the cry of the poor, he too will cry out and not be answered.”

            James 4:17:  “Anyone, then, who knows the good he ought to do and doesn’t do it, sins.” 

            Romans 14:23:  “. . . everything that does not come from faith is sin.”

UGW Q9f: Maybe God's Not Listening

            Okay, now this is a lot to think about already.  But there is more.  (And even more than what I am saying here.)  On top of all that I’ve already said, there are many more verses that shed light on why our prayers may not be effective.  We have a much greater responsibility than we realize in making sure that our prayers get heard.

UGW Q9e: Humbled by Unanswered Prayer

            Another problem with the “name it and claim it” interpretation is that we are tempted to bail on God, to criticize ourselves for our “weak” faith, or to question Him when we don’t get the answers that we want or thought we would get.  It confuses us, discourages us, and blows our understanding of God and His Word out of the water.  And I think that God allows this helplessness and futility so that we can learn that it’s not about us, it’s all about Him!  That He is God and we are not!  And so that we dig deeper into the Word to see who God really is and what He has to say through all of it - and not just through the few passages that we are familiar with.