God’s Will in God’s Word
What is God’s will for my life?
It is one of the most frequently asked questions in the course of the Christian life. People do not mind hearing that the answers are found in God’s word. What starts to create bewilderment is that the answers have more to do with the principle level than with what we might call “action items.” That is because we want a list. If there is a treasure out there somewhere, we want the exact coordinates, not a scavenger hunt filled with riddles. Nevertheless the Bible’s answers are the most important answers to the question.
Of course that is not to say that one is going to find in the Bible the name of the person they are to marry, what work to pursue, or even the particular way that the Holy Spirit has empowered us to serve in his body. The Scriptures give us general principles. Oftentimes, what that means is that prayer, godly counsel, reasonable inferences, and circumstances lining up all become like planets in the orbit of that ultimate authority of the word of God.
The Problem of Subjectivism
Many things could be said about the importance of looking to the Bible for God’s will for our lives. The aspect that I want to make our focus here is the objective nature of God’s word for finding out that will.
We live in an age of subjectivism. In other words, the individual subject (his perspective, feelings, opinions, aims, etc.) has become the arbiter of what is true. In the classical way of thinking, truth is objective. I say “classical” and not just “biblical,” because throughout the history of Western Civilization, Christians and pagans alike at least had a common outlook on the world which, well, “looked out.” Human beings tended to look outside of themselves—beyond their own finite, personal reference point—to discover reality.
As the Enlightenment turned sour, and modernism gave way to postmodernism, that outlook turned inward. Luther once said that, “Man is curved inward,” meaning that sinful man tends to look to himself for his own salvation. It is also true that sinful man has always looked to himself for truth: “Everyone did what was right in his own eyes” (Judges 17:6; 21:25).
But even granting that point, this impulse toward subjectivism, the notion that truth is subjective, has taken on a life of its own in the past few generations. It is the very air we breathe: “Your truth is fine for you, but we all have our own truth.” This sentiment even came to define the home fellowship Bible study in the oft repeated conversation starter, “What does this verse mean to you?”
Now why am I bringing up the problem of subjectivism in an exploration of God’s will for our lives ? It is simply that these issues tend to become subjectivized even for Christians who recognize the problem of subjectivism in other areas of life.
The Principle and the Practical
God’s will is found in his word. Our own names, dates, and places are not inscribed there. Putting all of these together according to God’s word really means having these align to the basic truths of the word. That is what it means when an older, wiser Christian tells us that such and such is “a wisdom issue.” They do not mean something nebulous or mystical by that. Rather, what the Bible does tell us creates larger categories in our mind that trains our practical judgment on a more narrow, realistic set of possible conclusions for action.
Romans 12:2 and Hebrews 5:12 are important places where this is taught. Biblical truths transform our minds. In doing so, we now have a new “intellectual lens,” so to speak, so that we begin to view all of practical life differently through it.
For example, if God’s commandments call various things sin, then whatever job I take, I cannot take one that has me doing those things. So wisdom can work by way of exclusion. A sinful job is excluded. Additionally, if steadiness and excellence are glorifying to God, then wisdom would dictate that I choose a job that I am more likely to stick with and do well, over one for which my interests are elsewhere and my skill-set is unprepared.
How does the quest for God’s will turn to subjectivism? It doesn’t take very long! What is at work here is another “ism” that has invaded the modern church: Pragmatism. In American culture especially there is the cult of efficiency. What is true does not interest us as much as what works. We are busy and we do not tend to go to the Bible for course corrections, but for “answers.” In fact, we are cheating. Those are not answers. Those are formulas to help us do what we are already setting out to do. We lack the patience to subject our current practices or “lifestyles” to theological correction because we have made idols of those aspects of our lives.
This is not only a matter of truth, but of honor. God says, “Those who honor me I will honor” (1 Sam. 2:30). There is that very famous passage in Proverbs 3:5-6,
“Trust in the LORD with all your heart, and do not lean on your own understanding. In all your ways acknowledge him, and he will make straight your paths.”
Acknowledging him means readiness to do whatever his will is. No exceptions. The word of God informs our practical life, but our hearts must not be divided between competing sources of counsel. We cannot demand a “divine will” for us that is really only a human leveraging of the divine. When asking “What is God’s will for my life?” consider that the answer may very well be that he wants you to lose your life in order to find in his will the genuine article.
