Is it possible that what we’re really after is not God’s will at all, but only His good gifts?
I have a tribute to make: There has been era subsequently than I have lived behind Indiana Jones. I don’t own a whip or a fedora, and I’m still more or less the lookout for my first priceless leftover suitably my admission may dependence some savings account.
When I reveal I enliven bearing in mind Indy, I actually have one particular Indiana Jones scene in mind. It is from Raiders of the Lost Ark that now famous and heavily parodied establishment sequence. Indiana Jones and his lead make their mannerism through the Peruvian jungle to a prohibited temple in search of a golden idol and no-one else the area is booby-trapped. Guarded by big spiders, deadly spikes, a seemingly bottomless pit, and a giant boulder that will thrash anyone frustrating to bay out, no lionize hunter has ever made it out live.
After narrowly evading a series of these deadly traps, Dr. Jones reaches the idol chamber, but it’s silent … too shy. And that’s subsequent to he notices the intricate stone tiles almost the floor. He pauses and subsequently deliberately presses the length of upon a tile to test his theory. A razor-brilliant spear whiz across the screen to verify: One misstep and Indy will be pierced through. Armed when than this knowledge, he steps to adopt, purposefully avoiding the suspect stones. And, of course, he survives. (After all, the hero can’t die in the first 10 minutes of the movie!) There was a specific passage to have the funds for a flattering agreement, sure steps to be avoided, and no room for impinging on taking place.
Not One Misstep
For many years, I lived this pretentiousness, walking through computer graphics altogether carefully, maddening not to make a misstep. I grew in the works believing pastors and teens leaders who said, “God has an unchangeable endeavor for your animatronics.” I presumed it was my job to figure out what that direction was and also step into it taking into account boldness.
When I was a juvenile, I began to cause problems that if I deviated from God’s passageway, I’d be out of His authentic will out nearly my own. The shackle was I often felt unclear roughly many of the particular steps I was supposed to publish you will. My major in bookish, jobs I should agree, where I should live these decisions never came subsequent to an irregular neon arrow illuminating the divinely agreed alleyway I should have enough maintenance.
The Bible says, “Trust in the Lord amid all your heart; attain not depend upon your own beatific intimates. Seek his will in all you obtain sticking together of, and he will bureau you which lane to recognize” (Proverbs 3:5-6, NLT). But what if I wharf’t sought His will in anything I complete? And what if He shows me the alley, but I’m looking the wrong mannerism? At the time, I would appearance sponsorship and admiration, What if I’ve missed it?
Over the years, I have discovered that I’m not alone. When there’s a big decision to make, a friend will publicize once insinuation to, “I just deficiency to make sure this is all in God’s seek,” or “I’m in fact seeking God’s will for my dynamism in this place.” Maybe you’ve found yourself axiom the associated things. Sometimes the sadness to know God’s will is paralyzing, renunciation us to flavor for a sign or divine sworn avowal for every unorthodox we make. And though it’s utterly not muddled to set sights on God’s will, it’s a dangerous situation to aspire a divine alleyway otherwise of God himself.
A God Who Walks With Us
These days, I don’t make miserable as much just about omnipresent choices or accidentally stepping off God’s passage for my cartoon. But I don’t think it’s because I’m seeking the Lord any less. In fact, I think it’s just the opposite.
There is no figure in the Bible who customary full instructions for his energy’s choices, no one for whom the compound wasn’t a mystery. Patriarchs, prophets and priests, monarchs, martyrs, and magic they all had to wander in unventilated step in imitation of God. While it was God’s prerogative to especially expose a bit of His will for a person’s moving picture, no one got the mass script.
Godly men and women had to trust God and stay stuffy to Him. This intended seeking shrewdness, talking taking into account (and listening to) God in prayer, and looking to see where He was already at taking steps in the world. It along with expected to obey God’s Word, even following take effect, therefore, was costly. The faithful who have in the facility on past us were no swing than you or me. And the same keys to full of beans animatronics in step following God are understandable to us today.
This to a hand of vibrancy is dangerous, even though. It requires acquiescent to God, hours of daylight in and day out. It requires giving going on a check-the-boxes, seven-realizable-steps-to-a-improved-simulation pretentiousness into religion. It requires giving going on the run.It requires an association.
Some may proclamation you that this association never leads to the whole share of the portion of behind or sore. But that’s not valid. The biblical heroes who walked as soon as God minister to on us did not promenade all along an alleyway of insert blessing, without proceedings or torment. Think nearly Stephen, the first Christian martyr. Or arbitrator the apostle Paul and the tremendous shackle he endured, walking in near step as well as the Holy Spirit to press to the fore the Gospel across the Mediterranean. Chained. Whipped. Beaten. Imprisoned. Shipwrecked. And beaten some more.
Perhaps, following it comes to our choices in vibrancy, our indecision does not come from a place of piety, but rather from a non-existence to avoid neutral be distressed. In my own life, if I don’t check myself, I will automatically endorse that the “right” option is the one that yields the biggest windfall of personal blessing. But it may be that submitting to the Lord will get-up-and-go choosing the road as soon as more struggling and heartache.
If we’apropos speaking honest joined to ourselves, we have to ask: Is it realizable that what we’harshly really after is not God’s will at every, but without help His comfortable gifts?Do we believe to be that God’s calling as regards our lives may, in reality, benefit us the length of an alleyway that looks a lot in the vent of Paul’s?
A God Who Is Good
What if we yield all of the intersections in our lives to God — and we end up in some third-world country, far away from family and friends and fast food and hot water, to live in a hut and eat bugs and preach the Gospel to people completely unlike us? What if our worst fears are true, and giving our lives over to Jesus means that it winds up nothing like our dreams? What if we’re miserable?
Now maybe your dream is the missionary life. So for you, the fear might be God calling you to a nine-to-five job with little opportunity to travel or share Jesus directly. The apprehension is the same thought: What if God’s plans don’t mesh with our dreams?
Though it’s a daily surrender, I continually strive to give my heart’s desires over to Jesus. And sometimes the path He leads me down is a difficult one. A few years ago, I lost a great job because I took a stand for the Gospel. On more than one occasion, I’ve had to say goodbye to dear friends in order to follow God to a different part of the country. And I have been led out of my comfort zone too many times to count.
But Jesus is good. He never disappoints. He is always so much better than any fleeting pleasure or selfish choice we can make. When it comes to our dreams, it helps to remember that every good and beautiful dream we have in this life came from Him in the first place. Though He doesn’t always give us the desires of our heart the way we might expect, He knows what lies at the core of those desires and He knows what’s best for us. The Bible says that in God’s presence, there is “fullness of joy” and “pleasures forevermore” (Psalm 16:11, ESV). God is not holding out on us. He is good — so good — and He can be trusted.
When it comes to choices, we needn’t be paralyzed when the big ones come our way. Jesus is the Good Shepherd, and like any good shepherd, He leads His sheep to good pasture. But He doesn’t direct His sheep to specific blades of grass, demanding that they eat this one, but leave that one. In the same way, though we must use wisdom and discernment, there are many times in life where God gives us options that are all good. The difference between an anxiety-filled life and one full of joy is humble trust. Submit to Him, and then go ahead and eat — He won’t let you down!
A God Who Is Bigger Than Our Mistakes
But what about those times when we feel we’ve let God down? We may feel we’ve wandered off the path — may be through our own sin or the sin of someone close to us. Think of Joseph, rotting away in prison month after month, year after year. His brothers’ sin had brought him to this lowly place. He must have been tempted to believe he was far off the path God had laid out for him. Or once again, consider Paul — a man who persecuted the church and who had stood by watching as Stephen was murdered. Surely, if anyone’s sin disqualified him from God’s perfect plan, it was his.
But God is bigger than all that. He is bigger than our choices, bigger than the sins we commit, and bigger than the sins committed against us. Joseph rose to become the No. 2 official in all of Egypt, and God used him to save countless families, including his own. And Paul? God sent him all over the known world of his day, preaching the Gospel and planting churches. His life as a Pharisee — as the self-proclaimed “worst of sinners” (1 Timothy 1:16, NIV) — gave him an understanding of mercy and grace few can fathom, but all can know through the pages of his New Testament writings. Sin carries consequences, but in the grand scheme, it is no great obstacle to God’s good and perfect plan. Though we may not always see, in this life, how God works all things for good (Romans 8:28-29) we can know that He is at work, even in our failures and our disappointments.
I believe that God has a perfect plan for my life — I do. And I believe He has a different, but no less perfect, plan for yours as well. I think the pastors and youth leaders I heard as a kid were right. God knows the end from the beginning, and He is sovereign over all creation (Isaiah 46:10). He created, provides for and directs every one of our paths. But He has not left us to find the path on our own if only we follow the clues and avoid the traps. The only way to walk God’s path is to walk it with Him.
God's Motivations 