"A man is contemplating whether or not God wants him to marry the woman he is currently dating. One morning, he prays and asks God to tell him what he should do. He then flips on the TV as he gets ready for work. While he’s getting dressed, he sees a news story about a woman with the same name as his girlfriend. Not sure what to make of that, the man leaves his apartment and starts walking to the office building where he works. He chooses a route that takes him past a jewelry store where he and his girlfriend had looked at rings a couple weeks earlier. He glances in the window and, to his amazement, sees that the ring his girlfriend had pointed out to him is on sale for 25% off! Concluding that God must be trying to tell him something, he dashes into the store and buys the ring on the spot. Less than a week later, he proposes (she says, “Yes!”) and the couple is married that June. Less than a year after that, the couple begins to experience some problems. She is anxious to have kids and start a family. He isn't sure if he really wants kids, but he knows he at least wants to wait a while. The fighting is terrible and the underlying tension when they aren’t fighting is even worse. The man looks at the frustration and hurt feelings involved with his marriage and wonders: Did I misread God’s signs when we were dating? Is God now trying to tell me that I made a mistake? Am I supposed to start over now and try to find the woman that God REALLY has in mind for me? God wouldn’t want us to stay in a situation that makes us so unhappy and miserable, would He?”
One may wonder how many self-professing Christians can relate to this man's predicament. When the "Christian" divorce rate is reportedly so close to the national average, it seems reasonable to conclude that at least a few people have had a similar experience wrestling with the question of "What is God's will for my life?" Indeed, this question likely comes to mind for many Christians at some point in their lives, especially when facing a significant life decision. Unfortunately, some of us spend weeks, months, and even years just waiting around for God to give us a "sign" so that we'll know what to do next. At the same time, we ignore His Word that has been placed in our hands. If we are really interested to know what God wants us to do, why would we neglect studying what He has already said to us?
The reasons might vary a little bit from person to person, but it basically boils down to a combination of three factors:
1.) "Supernatural" signs seem more spiritual, impressive, or exciting to us than reading an old book.
2.) Waiting for a sign is less work than reading an old (and thick) book.
3.) Cryptic and vague signs are easier to interpret in our favor than God's Word.
If we are serious about understanding God's will, then we need to consider how He has told us to go about it. First of all, God has given us stern warnings about divination - trying to gain insight about the future through pagan means like fortune-telling, interpreting omens, consulting spirits of the dead, etc. (Deuteronomy 18:9-14). We need to check our motives here to see if we're really interested in submitting to God's plan for our lives or if we just want to know what is going to happen before it happens.
Romans 12: 2 says, "Do not conform any longer to the pattern of this world, but be transformed by the renewing of your mind. Then you will be able to test and approve what God's will is--his good, pleasing and perfect will." The apostle Paul is telling us that if we are to rightly discern the will of God, it is going to involve our minds. We are going to have to do some thinking in this process and we will have to think differently than the way the world thinks.
Romans 12: 2 says, "Do not conform any longer to the pattern of this world, but be transformed by the renewing of your mind. Then you will be able to test and approve what God's will is--his good, pleasing and perfect will." The apostle Paul is telling us that if we are to rightly discern the will of God, it is going to involve our minds. We are going to have to do some thinking in this process and we will have to think differently than the way the world thinks.
Well, how does the world think? In Colossians 2:8, Paul says that "hollow and deceptive philosophy" depends on "human tradition and the basic principles of this world rather than on Christ." The world bases its thinking on man's ideas rather than God's truth and these ideas produce futile thinking. This phenomenon is as obvious today as ever with Secular Humanism becoming the prevailing worldview in our culture over the past couple of centuries. Based on the celebrated, human tradition of Darwinism, the Big Bang theory, and evolution via bacteria-to-human mutation, this narrative has produced such fruit as: Marxism, Nazi Germany, the Holocaust, the Soviet Union and other communist regimes across Asia with a reputation for mass genocide, eugenics (enter Margaret Sanger and Planned Parenthood), and finally rampant abortion in the United States and worldwide.
How are we as Christians supposed to think? Psalm 1:2 says that we are to delight in God's law and meditate on it day and night. In other words, we need to think Biblically! Unfortunately, this doesn't just happen overnight. We need to train ourselves to think this way through continued study and mediation. Unlike eastern meditation that involves turning off the mind and emptying it to achieve some higher level of consciousness, Biblical mediation involves engaging the mind that God has given us and filling it with His truth. God reveals His truth to us when we use our minds the way He designed them, not when we use them to come up with our own human traditions or try to set them aside entirely.
Once we start using our minds the right way and go to God's Word to hear from Him on His terms, we find that God has told us a lot concerning His will and He's rather clear about it. Here are a few examples:
"He has showed you, O man, what is good. And what does the LORD require of you? To act justly and to love mercy and to walk humbly with your God." (Micah 6:8)
"It is God's will that you should be sanctified: that you should avoid sexual immorality; that each of you should learn to control his own body in a way that is holy and honorable," (1 Thessalonians 4:3-4)
"Be joyful always; pray continually; give thanks in all circumstances, for this is God's will for you in Christ Jesus." (1 Thessalonians 5:16-18)
You may have noticed that none of these verses explicitly tell you which college to attend, what line of work to pursue, which person to marry, etc. However, that is where your mind and meditation on God's Word come into play. Walking in God's will means applying Biblical principles to everyday situations and decisions. It's rather difficult to guess "What Would Jesus Do?" if we're not in the habit of studying His words and actions.
If the man in our story had been reading his Bible on a regular basis and was in the process of training himself to think and pray Biblically, he would have known that "the prudent give thought to their steps" (Proverbs 14:15), that God loves children and calls them a blessing (Genesis 1:28; Psalm 127:3-5; Matthew 18:1-6), what to look for in a woman (Proverbs 31), that the role of a husband is to lay down his life as Jesus did for the Church (Ephesians 5:25-33), and that God intends for marriage to be permanent (Malachi 2:16; Matthew 19:6).
There is no need to remain stagnant and hampered by indecision. We may not know everything about God's plan for our future, but He has given us enough to make informed decisions. And even when it is not obvious to us which course we ought to take, we may still have confidence in our sovereign God who works all things according to the counsel of His will (Ephesians 1:11) which is for the good of those who love Him (Romans 8:28-29). In some matters, we might have two or three good options to choose from. There isn't really a "wrong" decision to make, so whatever we choose to do God simply asks that we do it for Him and His glory (1 Corinthians 10:31; Colossians 3:23). This, again, will drive you back to meditating on Scripture as you ponder what it means to do this or that for God's glory. But some of us need to stop worrying about making a mistake (as if we had the ability to throw off God's plan) and start living out of the freedom with which God has blessed us.
May your mind be transformed as your thinking is shaped and renewed by the wisdom found in God's Word. And may you seek His face through prayer and trust that if you acknowledge Him in all your ways, He will indeed make your paths straight (Proverbs 3:5-8).
For further study: Voddie Baucham's sermon - "Spirituality and Your Mind"
May your mind be transformed as your thinking is shaped and renewed by the wisdom found in God's Word. And may you seek His face through prayer and trust that if you acknowledge Him in all your ways, He will indeed make your paths straight (Proverbs 3:5-8).
For further study: Voddie Baucham's sermon - "Spirituality and Your Mind"
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