When faced with another of life’s many choices, it is sometimes obvious what we must not do.
Should I stay home from worship on Sunday morning? No, I should go.
Should I lie to my parents about what happened at school? No, I ought to tell them.
But besides the areas of life that are clearly ordered by God’s commandments and the other injunctions of Scripture, how do I find my way? In this place where God has put me, what is most pleasing to him? That isn’t always so clear.
For instance, there can be the complicated challenge of relationships in your family when some are non-believers, or when there has been an ugly conflict in years past.
There is the thorny matter of how to interact with a hostile and unbelieving world, the people who don’t always treat us fairly but who still need to hear the gospel.
In the intricacies of daily life there is not always a sharp line between calling something good and calling something evil (Rom 14:1–23). Scripture doesn’t speak with an unmistakable voice on every possible situation that we will face.
Because of life’s complexity, we wish sometimes that God would speak directly about what is pleasing to him. Then we could be like the holy angels, those servants around God’s throne receiving his directives and “doing his will in heaven” so willingly and faithfully (Ps 103:20–21).
Getting messages straight from the Lord on his heavenly throne would be simple: “____________, I want you to do this. This is the decision you should make.” That’s divine instruction to which we could happily submit—but would we?
Or perhaps we wish that God would give a detailed map for our life, something like following the promptings of your GPS.
Yet this won’t happen, for the excellent reason that God wants us to trust in him. We prefer to have everything sorted out and our lives planned in five or ten-year increments. But God might shine only enough light to show the next small step that we need to take (Ps 119:105)—the next opportunity, the next duty—and nothing more.
Here the Father’s provision of guidance is comparable to how Jesus teaches us to ask for our daily bread. When it comes to our bodily needs, God promises to give enough food and drink to sustain us, one day at a time.
The same is true for our knowledge of God’s will, for he often gives immediate instruction, a daily directive, and nothing more: “This is your assignment for today. Don’t worry about next month, or what you have to do next year. This is my will for what you need to do, right now.” God does this because he is teaching us not to forecast and fret about the future.
Most importantly, God wants us to keep returning to him in prayer for wisdom and direction. He wants us to be dependent on his guidance, each new day: “Father, what’s the next thing? In this new day, with its opportunities and challenges, show me how I can serve you faithfully.” James exhorts us in 1:5,
If any of you lacks wisdom, let him ask God, who gives generously to all without reproach, and it will be given him.
When we saturate our minds with the Lord’s Word, we learn this wisdom and begin to think in the Lord’s ways. As our minds and instincts are gradually shaped by Scripture, we learn more of God’s will, until we can start to say, “This is what God wants—he told me in his Word.”
Training in the Word is something to do in advance. In the moment of making a decision or settling on a course of action, we don’t always have time to contemplate questions of right and wrong. Life is dynamic and quickly hurries onwards.
It’s like merging onto the freeway when we only have seconds to decide: accelerate or slow down, move to the left or stay on the right. In situations like this, we rely on our instincts which are (hopefully) finely-tuned by experience.
This is when our need for godly wisdom is most apparent. Even when having an ordinary conversation, or starting a small project at work, or sitting down at the table for breakfast, there are immediate questions of how we are going to act and whose will we are going to do.
What is God’s will for my words to this careworn person?
What is God’s will for these boring labors in the office?
What is God’s will about the tension in my marriage these days?
The demands are immediate, and we are just seconds away from sinning. So we ask God to keep teaching us. Humbly acknowledge to God that what you want doesn’t matter. Then search the Scriptures to learn what God wants, asking for his Holy Spirit’s mighty help to put it into practice.
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