Can I Know God's Will for My Life?
Tom Shrader challenges the traditional view that God has a specific, discoverable individual plan for each person's life decisions. He distinguishes between God's sovereign will (His secret plan), moral will (biblical commands), and the assumed individual will, arguing that Scripture primarily addresses God's moral will. Shrader advocates for making wise decisions within biblical boundaries rather than seeking mystical signs or perfect clarity.
“In those areas where the Bible gives no command or principle, the believer is free to choose within this area - any decision within the moral will is acceptable to God.”
— Tom Shrader
Series: Chosen By God
Recorded: May 1994
Duration: 38 min
Themes: guidance, decisions, wisdom, discernment, calling, obedience, peace, freedom, career change, ministry calling, major decisions, seeking direction, young adult, new believer, confused about calling, feeling uncertain
Scripture: Proverbs 21:1, Revelation 4:11, Ephesians 1:11, Proverbs 16:33, Romans 9:19, Acts 2:23, Acts 4:27-28, Romans 11:33-36, 1 Thessalonians 5:18, 2 Corinthians 6:14, Colossians 1:9, Colossians 4:12, Romans 12:2, Ephesians 5:17, Ephesians 6:6, Proverbs 3:5-6, Ephesians 5, Romans 8, Galatians 5, 1 Thessalonians 4:3, James 1:5
Theological Themes: providence, divine will, sovereignty, biblical authority, sanctification, spiritual discernment, moral will, biblical wisdom
Full Transcript
I'm going to take today as just a little pause between series to deal with an issue. I need to tell you up front, for some of you, there's no question about this, this will be a gigantic yawner. For others of you, this will be a very uncomfortable 35 or 40 minutes. And for, I think, the majority of you, this is going to be a very freeing time.
This should be a time, my goal here in the next 40 minutes, is to really blow away some of the things that perhaps over the years have crept into your thought process and rather than help you, are really ultimately hindering you. So that's the process here.
Over the last however many years, I'll say 10, I've had countless conversations. Somebody will call or we'll have coffee and they'll say, "I'm going into the ministry full time." I'll say, "Terrific. How did you decide to do that?" "Well, I've been very frustrated with where I work. I'm very uncomfortable with that. And my spouse and I have been praying and here's what we said, just the other day, 'God, you open the door and if you open the door, we'll just think that's a sign and we'll go do this.' And then I saw a bulletin board for Acme Ministries and I called them and lo and behold they were willing to let me work under their umbrella."
"It's not a salary position. I have to raise my own support and my wife and I looked at this and we have so far raised support of about $20 a month and we need about $3,800. It's going to be a step of faith because God really has called us into this. He's going to provide it also on a step of faith. We're going to go do this and here's what's happened. We're going to start with them in a week or so." And I'll say, "How's your wife feel about this?" "Well, she's a little bit nervous but I've prayed about it and I have a great deal of peace."
I've had that conversation or some variation of it a thousand times. And really what we're talking about in that case has different variations. "I've decided to change careers." "I've decided to change locations." Essentially the same elements. I've prayed about it, I've thought about it, God opened the door and away I go and that's how I make these decisions.
Understanding God's Will
What we're talking about fundamentally here is God's will and that's what we're going to talk about for the next 30 minutes. How to know God's will for your life. What do we mean when we talk about God's will?
Here are the four questions we're going to look at and in many places people will raise these questions but never answer them. We're going to raise them and answer them for you this morning. Number one, when we talk about God's will, what is it we're talking about? Number two, is there proof of God's will that He has a definite plan for your life and the implication of that is in the process then if He has a plan for my life then I must be able to know what that plan is so I must be able to discover it? And if I can discover it how can I know for certain that I have found the will of God for my life?
Now this discussion flows out of a book written by a gentleman whose name is Gary Friesen. I would suggest to you it is a marvelous book and if this interests you, stop and pick up the book. You should be able to find it at most Christian bookstores and if not they can order it for you and get it in reasonable time.
The Traditional View: Three Types of God's Will
Here's the first question, when we talk about God's will what do we mean? We're going to look at this perspective from a traditional view. This is the view that you've either explicitly been taught or more likely over a period of time you've kind of knit this together like a patchwork quilt, a little bit from here and a little bit from there. When we talk about God's will we typically talk in three areas.
Here's the first one, God's sovereign will. When we talk about God's sovereign will here's what we mean, His secret plan that determines everything that happens in the universe. Again we've got some scriptures here, there are many, many more that would speak to this idea of God's sovereign will: Proverbs 21:1, Revelation 4:11, Ephesians 1:11, Proverbs 16:33, Romans 9:19. All begin to build a case for God the almighty creator, God who raises up kings, puts down certain kings, God who is the creator of all things.
And yet clearly from all this in the midst of this we see that God is not the author of sin or the author of evil and yet in this plan of His man's will is not violated and man still remains responsible for all that he does. If you put those scriptures together and others that's the picture you get. When you get to Acts chapter 2 verse 23 and Acts chapter 4 verse 27 to 28 what you have are sermons by Peter, sermons in which Peter is speaking of Christ and he says He's the one that you killed, that you killed by a predetermined plan based on the foreknowledge of God, He's the one that you are responsible for carrying out His purpose.
So when we talk about the will of God we typically talk about one of, traditionally now, one of these three things. So when we see that phrase "will of God" we've got to ask the question are we talking about His sovereign will, that secret will, frankly that is shrouded in mystery? Again Romans 11 verse 33 to 36 says exactly that, "Father your will is unfathomable, it's beyond my understanding, I can't begin to comprehend it." It's His secret will.
God's Moral Will
So I see the phrase "will of God" as I read through scripture I've got to decide what's He talking about, His sovereign will or here's another possibility, His moral will. When we speak about His moral will we speak about those commandments and prohibitions that are revealed exclusively for us in scripture. 100% of God's moral will is revealed for us in scripture. The Bible tells us how we ought to live and what we ought to believe and you really see that as you get down into these verses, 1st Thessalonians
As Paul closes out the book of 1 Thessalonians, he says these words: "I urge you brethren, admonish the unruly, encourage the faint-hearted, help the weak, be patient with all men. See that no one pays another with evil for evil, but always seek after that which is good for one another, good for all men. Rejoice always, pray without ceasing, in everything give thanks to God, for that is God's will for you in Christ Jesus."
When he lists these things, he's clearly not talking about this secret plan. He's just told you what to do. Nor has he given you any sort of an individual plan. He's speaking of His moral plan. The Scripture is filled with references to God's moral plan for your life, God's moral will for your life.
The Challenge of Applying God's Moral Will
Unfortunately, these references aren't always detailed, and they can produce some perplexing problems. Second Corinthians chapter 6 verse 14 tells us that we are not to be bound in marriage to an unbeliever. Now we're talking about knowing God's will and making decisions for life accordingly. So I read this passage: a believer should not marry an unbeliever.
If I come to you and say I'm getting ready to get married and I'm a devout believer, she's a pagan, your counsel to me is relatively simple. You would say to me, "Don't marry her." It's clear, isn't it? That's what the Scripture says.
But how about if I did this: How about if I came to you and said I want to introduce to you this little gal right here, and man is she something. Isn't she? Wouldn't you agree she's something? Being the spiritual giants that you are, you would look at her and the little package that she is and you would say, "What a dwelling place for the Holy Spirit."
Dating and Decision-Making
I would say to you, "I'm thinking of taking her on a date. We're going to go to a dinner and a movie and a Suns game." I would say to you, "What do you think? I'm a Christian, she's a pagan." What would you say?
Well, this is a little bit of a more difficult call, isn't it? Because I can't go to the Scripture and the Scripture doesn't say don't date an unbeliever. It does say don't marry an unbeliever. Now I have a very simple mind, and here's how my mind works: The easiest way to not marry an unbeliever is to not date an unbeliever. Works for me.
It's the same thing when you get over here and it's a home game, and it's a free home game, and you've got to watch the game and you ordered the pizza and they got a special six-pack of Bud for a dollar and a quarter, and you're going, "Man, a beer with the pizza would taste really good." What do I do? Because I don't want to do something stupid. So I go to the Scripture, and the Scripture says don't be drunk with wine.
Simple Principles for Complex Decisions
If I said to you I'm going to get this 12-pack of beer and drink it all, you would say to me, "Don't do that." But if I said I'm going to have a Budweiser with my pizza while I watch the game, it's a little bit of a sticky wicket, isn't it? Because I don't have a chapter and verse that says don't drink. I do think, again this is just me, and as I said before I'm a very simple fellow, the easiest way to not get drunk is to not drink.
So I will tell you that thought process may be simple, but I'll tell you this: it works 100 percent of the time. So I think it's worth your consideration.
Understanding God's Individual Will
So now I hit these verses in here about the will of God, the will of God, the will of God, and I have to say wait a minute, what's He talking about? He's not talking about a sovereign will. Nor do I look at it and it doesn't say, "Tom, you always," and here's how you do it. It doesn't have that. So I'm talking about His moral will.
At this point, because you are at a crucial point in the conversation, this is where many of you will start to drift off and begin to sleep. You'll be like my father when he goes to a movie. My mama and my father will go to a movie, it'll be a murder mystery type movie, it'll be two hours long. My dad likes those comfortable seats. He'll settle back, doze off, and then for about the last half hour he'll wake up and say, "Now what did she say? How did this work?" You're going to be doing the same thing in about 20 minutes if you let this thing gap right here. You've got to hang in right now, because this all ties together in enormous application if you can power through this.
The Traditional View of God's Individual Will
Now you've heard over and over and over again, you've said it, you've heard people say it: "It's God's will for my life that I go to work at Acme ministry. It's God's will for my life that I marry this person. It's God's will for my life that I buy this house or go to this career or do this over here."
Are they talking about God's sovereign plan? Well, obviously they can't be, because that's a secret. Are they talking about God's moral will? No. What they're talking about is what we traditionally refer to as God's individual will—His ideal, detailed, unique plan for your life.
Then you go through all sorts of Scripture that men and women use to try to build a case around this. Colossians chapter 1 verse 9: Paul writes, "For this reason also, since the day we heard of it, we have not ceased to pray for you and ask that you may be filled with the knowledge of His will in all spiritual wisdom and understanding." The same thing again in Colossians 4:12. Romans 12:2: "Don't be conformed to this world, but be transformed by the renewing of your mind that you might know the will of God." Ephesians 5:17 basically says it is important for you to know the will of God. Ephesians 6:6 says this is the will of God.
Then what we do, it gets a little foggy in here, but then what we do is take those and we add verses like Proverbs 3:5-6: "Trust in the..."
Lord don't lean on your own understanding and in all your ways acknowledge Him and He'll make your path straight. He'll give you some sort of guidance is clearly the implication. If you read the King James, the King James implication is clearly He'll guide you in these steps.
Then somebody comes along and says I've made this decision and in making the decision I was led by the Spirit in this because after all in Ephesians 5 doesn't it say be led by the Spirit and in Romans 8 it says be led by the Spirit. So now you've got people, very honestly the vast majority of people who call themselves Christians, who are walking around trying to find God's individual will for their life.
How People Try to Find God's Individual Will
How do they do it? Let's say you're here today and you're trying to find God's individual will for your life. You're convinced that God has a place for you, a person for you to marry, whatever it is. How do you find it?
Well here's what you typically do: you go to the Bible. So you try to find some verses out of the Bible, but let me admonish you quickly, you need to be careful in doing that. When you read that God sent the Prophet to Jerusalem, it's a bit of a stretch to say God's calling you to a holy land tour.
So I need to be very careful in this process. So now it's election day. Who do I vote for? Well let's think about this. After all, God chose David and he was the shortest of all the potential new kings. So I don't care what the candidates believe. All I want to know is how tall are these five people because I'm gonna vote for whoever's the shortest.
The Danger of Misinterpreting Signs
There's some cash circumstances now. You start again in the illustration at the beginning. I asked God to open a door and I saw a bulletin board that said Acme ministries. God must want me there.
You have to be very very very careful with this. I find people all the time opening doors and closing doors and God shut that door. Well let me ask you, is the door open and so tantalizing that it might cause you to go through and really what God's doing is testing you to see if you have the discipline? Or is the door appear to be closed but it's really only stuck and if you in perseverance hit that door it'll swing open and now you walk through and that's God's will? Well I don't know, that's a little sticky wicket.
How about this? I have this inner witness. I just hear a still small voice. Let me just warn you and I don't mean this flippantly at all, the son of Sam heard a still small voice and the son of Sam after he killed had a great deal of peace about it. Watch out you're still small voice. I don't trust my still small voice too much because my still small voice is awful concerned about me.
Problems with Common Methods
Mature counsel becomes subjective. Personal desires, this is a great one. We seem to be polarized on this. Some of you say oh I'm filthy rags and if I really wanted something it could never be right and that would never be good and so you'll never have any. And the others have you say hey listen doesn't the Bible say God will give me the desires of my heart? If I wanted He must want me to have it. He wouldn't give me these desires if He didn't want me to have it. He wouldn't let me feel that way about her if He didn't want me to have her.
So now all this stuff is flowing together and now I'm trying to make a decision. Remember we're just still trying to make a decision here. And then we use common sense. There is a huge problem with using common sense and the problem with using common sense is very simple. It's not very common. You probably don't have it. It's not there.
So now here I am trying to figure out should I go over here, should I marry this person, should I live in this house, should I buy this car, should I have this? And I'm reading the Bible and I'm looking at an open door. After all, I went by and the salesman said he'd sell me the car, that must be it. We're goofy.
The Uncertainty Problem
So now we're trying to make all this and we still only answered three of our first four questions. What is God's will? Can I discover it? How do I know it? And remember the third question or the fourth question, how can I be certain about it?
So now you're running around and you're saying I married this person but we're not getting along. This isn't right. I went in this job but oh you know what, this job is hard so that He mustn't have wanted that. So now I start looking around and I start trying to see if these signs agree. I prayed about it, I've got results that I want, I'm still in communion with the Lord, this must be the decision I had.
And I grant you this is an extreme case but we had a guy one time who went to Vegas, came back, was convinced that God had called him to divorce his wife. He had prayed about it, he was divorcing her, and God clearly must have wanted that because in the process He brought along this new babe for him. And in the midst of all this he was still able to go to church and function in his leadership role there. If you look at it all, I'm not sure exactly how the Bible views it, but this guy would say God wanted this divorce. There's no way that's what I'm saying to you.
The Subjective Nature of the Problem
This thing is so subjective, your mind is so distorted and clouded, your heart is so evil, your emotions are often so untrustworthy and you're so selfish that it's unlikely you can make sound decisions based on all this stuff.
Here's how this begins to break down. Obviously I'm tipping my hand a bit. Here's how the traditional view is of making a decision. You picked a decision one of those that we've talked about. We start from the premise that God's got an individual will for each one of us in this, and that our purpose is to try to find that individual will.
Again, Friesen in his book calls it the dot. Find that one person, that one thing. 250 million people in this country, let's say half, 125 million are men, 125 million are women, and how do I find out of the 125 million the one God wants me to marry? And then how can you be so presumptuous to think that he or she would be a European male American?
Let me show you how this breaks down because you still seem to be clinging to it. You've got ordinary decisions and important decisions.
You've got ordinary decisions: What do I wear? Where do I go for lunch? Where do I sit? Where do I buy gas? Most of you are embracing the idea that God's got this singular will for your life about all of these detailed plans. I know the answer to this, having watched you walk in. Did any of you pray about what to wear today? I think not.
Did any of you petition the Lord on whether to wear this shirt? Did you go to Him? How many of you have fasted and prayed about where to eat lunch today? Consult the Scripture? See, once we start to execute this idea, all of a sudden we see very quickly that we're going to abandon it for most decisions. Nobody prayed about whether to brush your teeth today. That's just the way life is.
The Problem with Important Decisions
So now what we do is come to these important decisions: Should I marry? Who do I marry? Should I go to school? Where do I go to school? Where do I live? How about vocation? I've got something better - how about vacation? Or to buy a car? How does all this work?
Here's what begins to happen to you as you adhere to that. All of a sudden, this thing begins to break down. Your ordinary decisions that you make, you just abandon them altogether. There's no one here that would suggest in the foggiest moment that you should be getting up this morning and praying about what clothes to wear, which way to drive. I doubt it.
Here's another problem: oftentimes you have equal options. You're out there trying to find God's will with the understanding or the thought process that there's a dot, a single answer, and you've got good options. You want to go to law school. And you've been accepted to the University of Chicago, which is a great law school, Harvard, and Stanford. Three great schools. They're all going to give you a full ride. They all end together with the same package.
How do you make that decision? How do you begin to formulate all those things? And if I'm operating under the idea that God's got a singular answer, I'll guarantee you it's going to happen. You're going to go to Stanford or Harvard or Chicago - it doesn't matter - and after a year you're going to go, "Well, You didn't want me to go here because man is this hard and I'm miserable. I'll guarantee you I've misread God." So now you're walking around making very immature decisions in a life that's totally subjective.
An Enormous Sense of Freedom
I am about to give you an enormous sense of freedom, I hope. And it comes from this: When we started at the beginning, we started on the premise that when we talked about God's will, there were three possibilities - God's secret will, His moral will, and His unique life will. I want to suggest to you that I don't think from Scripture you can find and know God's unique will and plan for your life.
I know you've been taught that, and I know somehow you've accumulated that and assimilated that, but I'm suggesting to you if God does have a detailed, unique plan for your life, you can't know it.
Scripture Speaks of God's Moral Will
Going back to those verses, almost all of the verses that are used to speak of your will, or God's will for your life, are almost always in the context of His moral will. Colossians 1:9, we read it at the beginning: "For this reason, since we've heard of it, we have not ceased to pray for you, and to ask you that you might be filled with the knowledge of His will." And then it goes on - what is He talking about?
Here it is, right here: "So that you may walk in a manner worthy of the Lord, to please Him, to bear fruit." What He's talking about is not an individual, unique will for your life. What is He talking about? God's moral will.
"Don't be conformed to this world, but be transformed by the renewing of your mind," Romans 12, "that you might know the will of God." What's He talking about? Is He talking about so you might know where to work and how to live and what car to drive? No, He tells you right after that. He talks about the gifts of the Spirit, and then He talks about this: If you have prophecy, prophesy. Service, serve. Exhortation, exhort. Give, give liberally. Lead, do it with diligence. Mercy, show it cheerfully. Hate what is evil.
He's not talking about some secretive, individual will for your life that now begins to become revealed to you through a process of prayer and fasting. He's talking about His moral will. In almost every one of these cases that you look at, He is not, in the Scripture, encouraging you to find the dot. He's not encouraging you to find the singular answer in your life. He's encouraging you to adhere to His moral will.
A Real-Life Example
Here it is again. This is my favorite. I'm in this passage a ton of times. It happened six months ago. A fellow said, "I'd like to meet with you." We had breakfast. We sat down. I said, "What are you after?" He said, "I want to know what God wants me to do. I want to know God's will for my life. I'm thinking about a career change." I said, "You really want to know God's will for your life?" He said, "Yes."
More than anything else, you want to know God's will for your life? Yes, I do. I said, may I ask a question? He said, yes. I said, I had heard that you were living with a gal. Are you still living with her? And he said, yes. I said, I presume, and I don't want to, just because you're in the same house, does not mean that you're involved physically, but I will assume, if you tell me otherwise, that you're sexually active with her. Is that correct? Yes. I said, I got God's will for you right here. This is the will of God. You ready? Here it is. Your sanctification, that is, you abstain from sexual immorality.
It's another time when you see the will of God, and it is encompassed in context around the idea of how to live. It's His moral will, not some individual will.
Being Led by the Spirit
If I said to you that I'm going to get you this idea of being led by the Spirit, that phrase comes up a lot. Is the Spirit leading you in this? Where does it say the Spirit's going to lead you in your career decision? We've got this general sense that we know the Spirit is, in fact, indwelling us, but do you think He's leading us in a specific decision that we can know?
If I said to you, I'm going to read you a passage from Galatians chapter 5 about being led by the Spirit. Here you go. It's Galatians chapter 5. If you're led by the Spirit. Now, you don't know anything other than we're in Galatians chapter 5. If I say Galatians chapter 5 to you, what do you think of? Fruit of the Spirit.
Now, when you see being led by the Spirit in the context of the fruit of the Spirit, what's He telling you to do? He's not telling you to find a career path. He said you're either led by the Spirit or you're led by the flesh. It's the same thing in Romans 8. You're either led by the Spirit or you're led by the flesh. And if you're led by the Spirit, you're going to have love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, gentleness, faithfulness, and self-control.
Stop Exhausting Yourself
Men and women, here's what I'm trying to say. I'm saying that many of you are busting your pick and expending an enormous amount of energy that is destined to bring you nothing but anguish and frustration, trying to figure out who God wants you to marry, and is this the right person. I'll tell you how you can know this is the right person. When you say, I do, that's the person He's got for you. Isn't that tough?
But I've got other decisions. How do I make them? I would suggest to you that this is a very biblical and, frankly, fairly simple approach to this. It's not the traditional way, it's what we've identified as the way of wisdom.
The Way of Wisdom
In those areas that are specifically addressed by the Bible, the revealed commands, the principles of God, you obey them. That's step one. I go to the Word, and what the Bible tells me to do, I do it. What it tells me not to do, I don't do it. I think it's a bit silly to be petitioning God's will for your life when you're living with somebody. That's just my view. That isn't going to happen. Why? He's shown you the will. He's shown you what's right. You're not doing that. Why is He going to show you anything else? It's simple, isn't it?
In those areas where the Bible gives no command or principle, non-moral decision, the believer is free to choose within this area. Any decision within the moral will is acceptable to God. Now let me help you here. Let's say this lighted area represents God's moral will. And now it's time to make a decision. Whatever that decision is. Any decision within this lighted area is acceptable to God. He doesn't want you making a decision down here, but any area, any decision in that area is acceptable to Him. Seems to me there's great freedom there.
And then in normal decisions, in non-moral decisions, the objective of the Christian is to make wise decisions based on spiritual expediency. I want to move along. I want to get this going. So you don't need to pray about whether to use Crest or Colgate. Grab one, brush your teeth, and get on to the next deal.
Fear of Making Mistakes
Here's what I find. I find people are incredibly lousy decision makers. Some of them because it's just easier to not make a decision and people don't like the burden. Some of them because they really are in bondage to this idea that they can know a single place or career or job opportunity or house that God has for them. And they're scared to death of making a mistake.
We were talking a while ago about John Havlicek. And this is the time of the year to talk about basketball. Talking about how Havlicek at crunch time loved to have the ball. And I made the observation in a discussion with a fellow. Havlicek loved to have that ball because he wanted to make that last shot. And he said, well, that's part of it. But I really think what made Havlicek work was he wasn't afraid to miss the last shot.
See, some of us are scared to death we're going to make mistakes and fail. Let me help you out here. You're going to make mistakes and fail. So here's my thing. Screw up boldly. Step ahead and go in wisdom and understanding.
How to Make Decisions
How do you make decisions? Well, to me, you make them the way we looked at. You talk about wisdom. How do you get wisdom? Number one, you got to have the right attitude. I think it flows out of an attitude of humility, reverence for God, teachability, the idea of diligence and uprightness in faith.
Using the same illustration, I've sat with guys and gals who are living together and they continue to live together. I don't think they're teachable or coachable. I don't waste one second with them beyond that, especially if they walk around the illusion that they're believers and that this is no big deal. But when somebody says, I see what you're saying and I'm moving out, now you've got a teachable, coachable spirit. When somebody
Now you're coachable. Now you're teachable. It's time to make decisions.
What do you do? The first thing you do is pray and ask God for wisdom. James 1:5 - if you lack wisdom, ask and He'll give it to you. Then you go to the Scriptures and you read this book and you scour it to see what God's got to say. I don't want to violate any principle in this decision process that He would have for me, but I don't want to miss any admonition or encouragement that He has.
Then I do some research. Here's where common sense starts to creep in.
Use Common Sense in Decision Making
I'm going to take just an extra second here. We were in a small group one time with a guy who was a brand-new Christian, and Christians were getting on him a little bit. We're sitting around at the end, talking and praying. This one guy said, "I want to change jobs, but I can't get out of this job because I didn't graduate from high school, but I'm intrigued by computers and I'd like to learn computing. Will you pray for me for this?"
The next guy said, "I'd like to get into pyrotechnics and lighting that you do on stage in Broadway. They do it primarily in New York and a little in Los Angeles." Then a third guy wanted to be involved in something - I can't remember what it was, but he had to be in Duluth for it.
Finally my friend could take it no more. He said, "All you guys are sitting around praying this. Let me help you out. You need to go get a GED and go over to Mesa Community College. You need to move to Los Angeles - they're not going to open Broadway here for you. You want to get into lighting, you better go to Los Angeles. If the job you want is in Duluth, then you better get to Duluth. You guys don't need to be praying a lot for this stuff anymore."
I wanted to say amen. All these mature Christians were praying, but this is a no-brainer. They're not going to open up Broadway here. If you want to get into that field, you've got to go there. It's personal research. It's thinking about it. You ask godly people, and then you look at life from itself.
Make Decisions Within God's Moral Will
Then, men and women, you go and you make decisions. I found out I have a finite amount of energy, and I can't afford to waste any of it trying to worry whether I missed some knowable thing that God had for my life. You can't figure it out. You're going to go crazy. You're never going to know. Open door, closed door, stuck door - what is it? You can't know.
What do you do? How do you stay in the will of God? You do what He tells you to do. You don't do what He prohibits you from doing. You make every decision subsequent to that within the area of His moral will. You trust and you ask Him to give you insight and wisdom to see life as it truly is.
Like I said at the beginning, a yawner for some. Some of you are itching because this is not at all what you want to hear about this. For some of you, you are about to experience enormous freedom in your life as you begin to be able to make decisions in a wise, biblical fashion, rather than some haphazard, immature way that's patched together from a bunch of people who've thrown verses at you with no context or biblical understanding. In love they did that.
Prayer
Let's pray. Father, thank You for Your Word that we can trust it. God, there are decisions inevitably in this room right now - serious decisions. Career changes. Spouses. To decide to marry or not to marry. Who to marry? Jobs. Decisions within the marketplace. All sorts of life decisions.
Father, let us experience the freedom that we can have in this decision-making process. Not a freedom that allows us to make any old decision we want, but a freedom that allows us to look at Your Word, to ask You for wisdom, to speak to godly men and women, to look at the marketplace. A freedom that allows us that within the context and the parameters You define for us, we can make any decision we want.
God, let us experience that decision freedom in all the areas of our life, understanding that as we fail, we will come to You in humility and reverence and ask You to show us yet again how we should live. Father, we come to You now and ask You these things in Jesus' name. Amen.