God’s Will and Our Everyday
Here are two situations I have faced in regard to our topic. As a younger man, I developed a sense that if an idea for something good popped into my mind, it must be the leading of the Holy Spirit. This mainly involved evangelism. I found that the idea would pop into my head, “It’s time to engage that person with the gospel.” I made a conjecture that such was “God’s will,” and then concluded that I had missed God’s best for me if I missed that opportunity.
Second, more recently: Although I am surrounded by what seems to me a large number of obligations, there will come a Saturday afternoon when it is unclear exactly what I should be working on next. I can become paralyzed with indecision in the hope of finding the absolute “best” way to spend my time. I then blame myself for having missed the opportunity for a quick decision that would have set me on the right track.
These are everyday decisions and each takes seriously a desire to do God’s will, but also shows uncertainty about that will.
I would like to begin with a text from Colossians, then introduce the theological idea of God’s two wills, and finally provide answers to three specific questions about how that theological idea works itself out in everyday, lived experience.
Colossians 1:9-10,
“And so, from the day we heard, we have not ceased to pray for you, asking that you may be filled with the knowledge of his will in all spiritual wisdom and understanding, 10 so as to walk in a manner worthy of the Lord, fully pleasing to him: bearing fruit in every good work and increasing in the knowledge of God.”
I notice several things about that text:
God wants us to know his will. Paul prays for this and we should pray the same for ourselves and for one another.
The goal is that we would be “fully pleasing to him” when we walk “in a manner worthy of the Lord.” Knowledge of God’s will leads to our ultimate delight and approval. God will genuinely say, “This is good” when we walk according to his will.
The result will be fruit. Paul prays that we would bear fruit in “every good work” and that we would increase our “knowledge of God.” Both of these results come from knowing and doing the will of God. Success looks like fruitful works (as defined by God) and knowledge of God. So, if you came tonight wondering if your everyday choices were leading toward what is good and in line with God’s will—you can ask yourself, am I bearing fruit in my activities and effort, and am I increasing in my knowledge of God?
The word “knowledge” is used twice, of the “knowledge of God’s will” and of the “knowledge of God.” We want to know God, and one way in which that comes about is by learning to know his will. God’s will and God are closely linked. To know God’s will (or to learn to know God’s will) also helps us to know God better.
This is quite a bit different than knowing “the future” or knowing how things will work out. To know God’s will is not a work of “divination,” or divining (predicting), using a God-like perspective to know the future. Learning to know God’s will is part of the same process that helps us to know God.
Back to verse 9, what is the manner by which we come to have a knowledge of God’s will? What is the way in which we grow in this skill? “In all spiritual wisdom and understanding.” God will give you knowledge of his will through spiritual wisdom and spiritual insight/understanding (συνεσις). And as soon as we see that word “wisdom” in the text, it should remind us of an important thing: wisdom, according to the Bible, is learned through a process of decision-making. Wisdom is not something we know ahead of time. Instead, wisdom is learned in practice as we live in this life.
The Proverbs tell us about wisdom. Paul echoes many of the words from Proverbs 2:1-6,
“My son, if you receive my words and treasure up my commandments with you, 2 making your ear attentive to wisdom and inclining your heart to understanding; 3 yes, if you call out for insight and raise your voice for understanding, 4 if you seek it like silver and search for it as for hidden treasures, 5 then you will understand the fear of the LORD and find the knowledge of God. 6 For the LORD gives wisdom; from his mouth come knowledge and understanding…”
The whole book of Proverbs tells you how to do this. Fundamentally, it is a process. You aren’t able to know wisdom all at once, but God opens the world to you and invites you to learn wisdom through practice and evaluation.
I believe that when we ask about God’s will for our everyday decisions, we are really asking about how to grow in wisdom—and that task is worth your everyday effort so that no moments, no decisions, no relationships are excluded.
How does God want me to orient my life in relation to his will?
God invites us into a lifelong pursuit of his (revealed) will and ways through the patient practice of wisdom.
God’s Two Wills
We need to begin by understanding what we mean by God’s will. The fundamental point is that because God is distinct from us as the creator, we need to speak about two wills in God—easily summarized as his “hidden will” and his “revealed will.”
That distinction is a divisive one in theology—and is specific to the broad stream we call Reformed theology, or Calvinism.
Hidden and Revealed Will
In Matthew 6:10, in the Lord’s Prayer, Jesus tells us to pray, “your will be done.” What do we mean by that? “Your kingdom come, your will be done on earth as it is in heaven.” It is something that is not happening right now on earth, but does happen in heaven. This is God’s direction, God’s commands, God’s kingdom values. We are praying, “Lord, make it come to pass that people in this world would obey your word.” Kingdom refers to God’s word reigning in the lives of men and women. So also with his “will.”
But in Acts 21:14, Paul insists on going to Jerusalem even though everyone around him tells him that he will be arrested there. “And since he would not be persuaded, we ceased and said, ‘Let the will of the Lord be done’” (Acts 21:14). The disciples cannot predict the future, they cannot know exactly what will happen, so they resign themselves to whatever God has planned, “Let the will (plan) of the Lord be done.”
“Will” in God does not mean, “I hope this happens,” but two different things in these two ways. First, God’s hidden will is his determination of all that will come to pass. (It WILL happen this way! His plan). The example from Acts is this type of will. His declared will is his command to rational creatures such as ourselves. (You SHOULD do this). The Lord’s Prayer is referencing this type of will.
Do God’s hidden and declared wills always coincide?
Again, it is helpful to remember that God’s hidden will is his prior determination of how everything in the universe will turn out. But his declared will is separate from this. “Do not eat of the fruit of the tree…” is a declared will. But, God has determined all things from eternity such that he wills (ordains) that Eve will eat that fruit.
This is not something that you or I can do. We don’t control the outcome of events. We don’t ordain from eternity things that will happen. We can imagine ourselves saying one thing while hoping for a different outcome (“No, please, no more apple pie…”), or we can imagine ourselves giving a command but knowing that we will accomplish the purpose even if our command is not obeyed (“I need you to shovel the driveway before you go to school…”), but this is not the same as God’s two wills.
This becomes significant for God’s decision to save some people out of sin and misery. When the Bible says that God “desires all people to be saved and to come to the knowledge of the truth” (1 Tim. 2:4), is it speaking about God’s desire on both of these levels? We conclude that God declares his desire that all people be saved. That is the intention of the gospel. Everyone may be saved. But that statement does not exclude God’s hidden will that ordains not everyone will be saved.
The teaching on God’s “two wills” separates Calvinists (Reformed tradition) from the non-Reformed tradition. If you believe in God’s two wills as I have presented it, then there are multiple cases in the Bible in which God declares one thing as his will while at the same time determining (willing) that something else happen.
How does this relate to our everyday decisions?
But wait, says a snarky objector, if God has irrevocably decided all things that will come to pass according to his hidden will, why do I have to do anything? Why follow his revealed will? This is the Couch Potato Objection.
It would seem that I could do everything according to God’s revealed will—repent of my sins, believe in Jesus, continue in the faith—but then, because of God’s hidden will, I might not be saved! On the other hand, I could, in theory, do everything against God’s revealed will (or nothing) and still gain his favor because of his hidden will. Why act, then?
Two reasons:
(1) The revealed will of God is sincere. God is not lying when he says that whoever calls on the name of the Lord will be saved. God has promised that responding to his revealed will shows us how his hidden will applies in our case. Hidden simply means, not revealed directly, but it does not mean random, capricious, or a secret plan against what God has said. No! God tells us that when he speaks, he puts his full authority behind that statement. He will not go against his revealed character.
(2) God uses means. God’s hidden will comes to pass through means. You will not have anything to eat today unless you use the means of reaching into the cabinet and pulling out a loaf of bread. The reaching and chewing are the appointed means for the end of eating, and God normally does not ordain an end without a means.
So what happens when I choose not to do something? Do I change God’s hidden will? No. God’s hidden will planned for and ordained that you would sit on the couch watching Netflix rather than getting up and going to church on Sunday morning. All things come to pass according to God’s hidden will, but not all things come to pass according to God’s revealed will.
Application: Our daily decisions should not be based on a knowledge of or assumptions about God’s hidden will, but they should be a response to God’s revealed will.
This keeps us from trying to get behind God’s word in order to know the mystery of God’s plan.
Discussion: In what situation might you wish to move past God’s revealed will in order to know God’s hidden world? What would you be hoping to gain? Perhaps: Will I find a spouse? Will I stumble into sin and apostasy? Will my children continue to follow Jesus?
How should we make decisions?
How do we make the multitude of decisions in front of us everyday that the Bible does not specifically address?
I’m a believer. I’m seeking to live according to God’s revealed will. I am doing pretty well on commandments 5-10 of the Ten Commandments (honor father and mother, don’t commit adultery, bear false witness, murder, steal, and covet), so what next? If I can’t find a clear command in Scripture for my situation, how do I decide what to do so as to be in line with God’s will?
Let’s first remember that God gives us a lot of direction in the Bible. He gives guidance and direction in his revealed word along with consequences that may happen if you do not follow the guidance. If a married person chooses to commit adultery, the Proverbs tell us that such a person is creating a world of trouble for themselves. If you store up treasure on earth rather than storing up treasure in heaven, you put yourself in eternal danger.
How does God want us to make choices? He wants us to grow in wisdom. We grow in wisdom by making choices and learning from them. Therefore, we make all of our decisions in faith, not because we have assurance that this is definitely God’s best for us, but because our combination of reason, experience, God’s word, advice of others, limitations of our natural human frame, and our desire to pursue risk versus safety all lead us to conclude, “Based on what I know, this is the best decision for me.” We trust that God is leading and working in that decision toward our growth in godliness, and then we re-evaluate and learn from the results.
Here is a very simple process for making these kinds of decisions:
1. Go to church.
Make sure someone else is speaking God’s word to you. This helps you escape from your own little thought-world. It reminds you of the most important things. It reminds you that there are other people to care for, to serve, to witness to. It reminds you that you are a sinner saved by grace.
Why is going to church a first step toward making decisions according to God’s will? Because it puts you in the right place to hear God’s will—the people of God gathered together under the authority of Jesus Christ.
2. Saturate yourself in scripture and prayer.
We’re not looking for direct guidance, like Dietrich Bonhoffer who read, “Do your best to come before winter” and decided he needed to return to Germany. But rather, I want to know the world of the Bible so well that my natural inclination corresponds with God’s revealed will.
“All Scripture is breathed out by God and profitable for teaching, for reproof, for correction, and for training in righteousness, 17 that the man of God may be complete, equipped for every good work.” (2 Tim. 3:16-17)
3. Seek out wise counselors.
“A wise man is full of strength, and a man of knowledge enhances his might, 6 for by wise guidance you can wage your war, and in abundance of counselors there is victory.” (Prov. 24:6).
Would not our life groups be revolutionized if we started asking each other, “What do you guys think I should do in this situation?”
This works for both big and little decisions: Should I take this job? And should I join an ultimate frisbee league?
Your counselors/friends/mentors know when you’ve already made the decision. This step only leads to wisdom when you can be open and honest about hearing good advice. In making one of our larger decisions, I had a conversation with my pastor. In the midst of it, I told him, “I trust your position as one who speaks God’s word to me and I am going to take your advice seriously.” And he responded, “I feel it, and I’m praying that it would be God’s wisdom that comes from me.”
4. Follow your heart (make a decision).
I believe God is working in me. I believe I am seeking Christ in this. Therefore I trust that he will lead me in his ways.
Notice, the goal of developing wisdom is to become the sort of person whose natural inclinations point toward what is true, and good, and beautiful. I really want to have a heart worth following—and I’m only going to get there by pursuing God’s wisdom.
5. Trust God’s goodness in Jesus.
Romans 8:28. God is at work in your life. He may have something to teach you through this decision (if it’s a poor one in the long run!), but that doesn’t matter. More significant is that you made the decision in faith.
What about when we get paralyzed in decision-making?
Usually it is because we want to know it all ahead of time. “I can’t make a decision because I can’t control the outcome/know the future.” Yes, and that is the human condition. We walk in the dark. But, we trust that whatever happens, it will work for our ultimate eternal benefit.
Does God’s will often coincide with my desires or passions? Or does it go against my desires?
We tend to think that God has a secret “best” plan for our life, and he hides it from us with tricks and smokescreens. Have you ever heard someone say, “I don’t want to do this at all, but that probably means God wants me to do it!”
There is no such thing as God’s “best” plan that you can hit or miss, apart from knowing Jesus Christ. The missed plan is when you walk away from the Lord and find other things as more valuable.
That is why I want to stress growing in wisdom. Wisdom is not a sixth sense, or the ability to see angels and demons, or a hunch about the future. Wisdom is becoming the sort of person who by habit and inclination is led to the best decisions in line with God’s revealed will. Wisdom is having rightly ordered loves. In other words, the more we grow in wisdom, the more we can actually trust that our passions coincide with God’s will.
“Do not be conformed to this world, but be transformed by the renewal of your mind, that by testing you may discern what is the will of God, what is good and acceptable and perfect.” (Rom. 12:2)
Notice that discerning what is best requires testing and a renewed mind.
But, this is crucial, that is a lifelong process. So what do you do in the meantime? Make decisions according to the best knowledge of your desires and God’s will that you can—and then evaluate the results.
How do I know if I am seeking hard enough to live in line with God’s will for my life?
There are two levels to this question that require two different answers.
First, am I seeking hard enough to live in line with God’s will so that I will be saved? No, but that is the good news of Jesus Christ. We are not saved from the penalty of our sins because we worked hard enough, but because God has graciously come to us in Jesus Christ and said, “Look to me and be saved!” The Cities Church baptismal liturgy is so helpful here:
“Are you now trusting in Jesus alone for the forgiveness of all your sins and the fulfillment of all God’s promises to you?”
Yes? Then you are living in line with God’s will for your life.
Second, am I seeking hard enough to live in line with God’s will as a Christian? In the realm of Christian living, however, I don’t think that word enough is the right one. It sounds like asking, “Am I doing enough exercise? Or, am I eating enough vegetables?” Yes, those are good things to do, but one doesn’t want to go overboard or crazy about them. Yes, I know I should read my Bible and pray, but if I’ve read a chapter and prayed, haven’t I done enough?
Two correctives to guide us:
First, let’s get out of our head that some activities are spiritual and others are not. I can’t tell you whether this non-sinful activity is more or less of God’s will for you right now without knowing as much about you as you know about you. John Calvin makes this point in regard to Mary and Martha. Is it better to ignore housekeeping in order to pursue contemplation and learning about Jesus? Yes, says Calvin, when Jesus is actually there. But there are plenty of other times when housekeeping is the proper activity for fulfilling the will of God in your life. “Am I doing enough” implies that certain activities count toward that “enough.” The more important question is, how are all the activities of my life leading me into greater delight in all that God is for me in Jesus? And worked out within our callings in this world—how do my activities promote my holiness and love for my neighbor?
Second, you will not regret any step you take toward holiness—therefore “enough” is never the right word. Can you get enough of Jesus? No. So, before we get caught up with God’s will for a downstream decision like whether to play pickleball or go to crossfit today, let’s wrestle with what God has revealed about his will. For instance, 1 Thess. 4:3,
“For this is the will of God, your sanctification [holiness]: that you abstain from sexual immorality.”
So, rather than asking, “How do I know if I am seeking hard enough to live in line with God’s will for my life?”, I believe we should ask, “How can I grow today so that I can see and love God’s will more tomorrow?” To do a bit of allegorical application, what tree can I climb today so that, like Zaccheaus, I can see and hear Jesus?
And then all the things of this earth start to get clear: playing pickleball, preparing a good meal, cleaning the house, cultivating a friendship, dating and marriage, wider responsibility at work, taking a risk for a new business, signing up for The Cities Institute, helping a friend in need, volunteering with Together for Good.
God wants you to know his will, his revealed will, that leads you to him and his ways. Every decision in our lives shapes us toward that end, or toward something else.
In God’s providence, he means to train us through the process of making decisions. So, the fact that we never know all the factors, that we doubt our convictions, that we have to decide among various good options—these are all God-given factors in decision-making.
Knowing God’s intention for our growth in holiness should free us to surround ourselves with wisdom (through church, Scripture, prayer, counsel) and then make decisions in faith because we know that God is working for our good even through what seem like mistakes.