Over the last week or two, I've been reading "Finding The Will of God: A Pagan Notion?" which I borrowed from my roomate, Paulman. I'd first seen it earlier in the summer at Sam and Esther's housewarming, and was attracted by the title. Written by Bruce Waltke, it addressed the fallacy amongst some Christians that the knowledge contained in God's will regarding a matter is 'hidden' and must be 'found' by some supernatural activity that enables a believer to penetrate the divine mind to get His decision. He also explained how 'finding' in this sense is really a form of divination, and why that is expressly wrong.
It is a powerful book. Powerful because it removed numerous misconceptions, answered nagging suspicions, and laid things out in a concise and clear framework.
It also saddened and infuriated me simultaneously.
I felt sad as I recognized descriptions of many traps that I and others had fallen into in times past, each incontrovertibly described and refuted. Sad as I thought of how each mistake might have cost me in growing in maturity in my walk with God. Some of those mistakes might have had very costly repercussions or consequences; only God knows, I guess.
But I also felt furious as the book accurately described numerous fallacious teachings I'd heard from the pulpit and various Bible studies over the years. I guess I felt conflicted in experiencing fury at the people who had not researched and prepared their material properly, responsible for teaching hungry people and feeding them falsehood instead. I wasn't sure if I should feel anger, or compassion in thinking that they might themselves have been duped and duped me and others through their own ignorance.
The following pair are examples among the many paragraphs that stuck chords of conviction:
"The New Testament gives no explicit command to "find God's will", nor can you find any particular instructions on how to go about finding God's will. There isn't a magic formula offered Christians that will open some mysterious door of wonder, allowing us to get a glimpse of the mind of the Almighty....God is not a magic genie....The reliance of special signs from God is the mark of an immature person - someone who cannot simply believe the truth as presented, but must have a special, miraculous sign as the symbol of authority from God."
"Above all that, we fear making a mistake. For you see, a mistake suggests that I am not a competent, worthwhile person. Therefore I will go to extreme measures to make sure that any major decision I make will be a good one. Also, I truly want to please God, so I will seek to discover His mind on the matter at hand."
In contrast, Walkte offered the following as God's "Program of Guidance", which I've summarized in bullet form using his headings:
The Bible:
- Learn To interpret Scripture
- Learn To pray while reading through Scripture
- Learn To memorize and meditate on Scripture
- Learn To humbly obey Scripture
- Learn To memorize and meditate on Scripture
- Are my desires correlated with Scripture?
- Are my desires correlated with presenting my body as a living sacrifice?
- Are my desires correlated with faith?
- Are my desires correlated with prayer?
- Whom to turn to
- What to say
- What is the call of God?
- God works on our behalf
- We cannot always know why
- The danger of putting circumstances above God's word
- Decisions in the light of Scripture
- Decisions in the light of giftedness
- Decisions in the light of ability
- Decisions according to circumstances
- Decisions according to an overall strategy
- The Wisdom Seeker
Kev, this is a great post. I love that you tackled the issue of "finding God's will". I've come to the same realization that you did, by unfortunately seeing how the term "finding God's will" is bandied about in the church with little regard to either veracity or true pursuit after God's will.
ReplyDeleteMake no mistake - I desire to be as close to the pulse of God as possible despite my failures and shortcomings (a life's work, I grant you that much). But what I've seen of folk (myself included, in the past) just dropping the term "finding God's will" does not seem to quite measure up to some of the decisions we take in our own capacity, which we (sometimes mistakenly) pass off to God. It almost feels like we're blaming Him sometimes. Either that, or we're on a spiritual Easter-egg hunt where 'X' marks the spot.
Anyway, thanks for this post and for bringing some clarity to this matter. God is not a genie. You said it right, old friend.
Cheers,
Josh
I agree that "God's Program of Guidance" as a more specific set of guidelines, based on Scripture and common sense, replaces the vague term "God's will" which sounds mysterious and exclusive.
ReplyDeleteAfter a year of trying to follow God's will I especially like the heading "Wise Judgement" including decisions in the light of Scripture, giftedness, ability, circumstances, and overall strategy.
After all, God would not call you to do something outside of your gifts/talents and ability no matter how great it sounds. For me, it seems as if the past year was wasted in striving, but now I know better - I won't depend on my own interpretation of things as guidance. Someone once said that, instead of the "will of God," having a close relationship and a daily walk with God is what God wants for us.
Thank you for your post.
-Sophia