GOD’S WILL FOR YOUR LIFE
by Paul Little FROM SWORD & TROWEL 1999 No 2Paul Little (1928-75) exercised a major ministry among students in the USA, heading the InterVarsity Christian Fellowship. This article is from a 1971 conference address reprinted in Classic Sermons on the Will of God, compiled by Warren W Wiersbe, and published by Kregel.
Suppose for a moment that the Lord Jesus Christ were to grant you the answer to one
question - any question you wanted to ask - what would that question be? My guess is that it would
probably relate in some way to knowing God’s will for your life.
We have a problem because we are often confused about what the will of God is. It is
important to understand at the outset that God has a plan and purpose for your life. This is one of the
sensational aspects of being a Christian - to know that your life can be tied into God’s plan and purpose
not only for time but for eternity. Paul writes, ‘For we are his [God’s] workmanship,
created in Christ Jesus unto good works, which God hath before ordained that we should walk in
them’ (Ephesians 2.10). In Psalm 37.23 David says, ‘The steps of a good man
are ordered by the Lord: and he delighteth in his way.’
Not only does God have a plan for us, but He has promised to reveal it to us. In
Psalm 73.24 David says of God: ‘Thou shalt guide me with thy counsel, and afterward receive me
to glory.’ In Psalm 32.8 God promises, ‘I will instruct thee and teach thee in the way which
thou shalt go: I will guide thee with mine eye.’
Finally those classic verses, Proverbs 3.5-6, two of the most compact verses
on guidance in the whole Bible, say, ‘Trust in the Lord with all thine heart; and lean not unto thine own
understanding. In all thy ways acknowledge him, and he shall direct thy paths.’
There are two aspects to God’s will. The first is that aspect that has already been revealed
in His Word, and that applies to every Christian. The second aspect involves those decisions in which
God has given no specific instructions in His Word.
Has it ever struck you that the vast majority of the will of God for your life has already
been revealed in the Bible? That is the crucial thing to grasp.
There are many positive commands. We know it is the will of God (Romans
8.29) that we are to be conformed to the image of Christ. If you want more details, read the book
of James and list all the specific commands there, and you will have a good start on the will
of God for your life.
Scripture also contains many negative commands. God tells us in unmistakable terms
in 2 Corinthians 6.14 that we are not to be unequally yoked together with unbelievers. This
means, among other things, that a Christian is never to marry an unbeliever. Are any of you praying for
guidance about whether you should marry a non-Christian? Save your breath.
The late A W Tozer pointed out that we should never seek guidance on what God has
already forbidden. Nor should we ever seek guidance in the areas where He has already said ‘Yes’ and
given us a command.
God, however, does not have a preference whether you have steak or chicken. He is not
concerned about whether you wear a green shirt or a blue shirt. In many areas of life, God invites us to
consult our own sanctified preferences.
But then, Tozer points out, there are areas in which we need special guidance. These are
the areas of life where there is no specific biblical statement like, ‘Thou, John Jones, shalt be an engineer
in Cincinnati,’ or, ‘Thou, Mary Smith, shalt marry Fred Grottenheimer.’ No verse in the Bible will give
that kind of detail. But God has promised us specific guidance in these areas. The Lord spoke to the
prophet Isaiah: ‘I am the Lord thy God which teacheth thee to profit, which leadeth thee by the way that
thou shouldest go’ (Isaiah 48.17).
The will of God is not like a magic package let down out of Heaven by a string. It is far
more like a scroll that unrolls every day. In other words, God has a will for you today and tomorrow and
the day after that. It may well be that a decision we make this week or next week will commit us for
three months, or five years, or a lifetime. But the fact still remains that the will of God is something to be
discerned and to be lived out each day of our lives. Our call, therefore, is not to follow a total blueprint,
but rather to follow the Lord Christ.
We need to look at some prerequisites for knowing the will of God in the biblically
unspecified areas of our lives.
One prerequisite is to obey the will of God in those areas mentioned in the
Bible. What is the point of God’s guiding us in areas in which He has not been specific when we
are apparently unconcerned about areas in which He is specific? Mark Twain once wryly observed, ‘It’s
not the parts of the Bible I don’t understand that bother me, it’s the parts I do understand.’ Perhaps this is
the problem for some of us now. We need to begin to obey in those specific areas.
We know, for example, that we ought to be meeting with the Lord every day in prayer.
‘But,’ you say, ‘you don’t know my schedule. I’ve got a heavy course load this year.’ But it is a matter of
setting priorities. If you are going to meet with God every day, it means you decide when you are going
to bed, when you will get up, and when you are going to study. You may have vaguely wanted to witness
to that fellow or girl down the hall. Then decide when you are going to do it. Attempt to contact that
friend to see if there is any openness to the Gospel.
What are the areas of the will of God that you already understand? To what extent are you
acting on that understanding?
Another prerequisite, and I think the most crucial, is to be willing to
accept the will of God in these unspecified areas of our lives before knowing what it is. In other
words, we must accept God’s will in advance. For most of us, I suspect, this is where the real problem
lies. If we are really honest, we would have to admit that our attitude is, ‘Lord, show me what Your will
is so I can decide whether it fits in with what I have in mind.’
In essence we are saying, ‘Just lift the curtain a minute and let me see so I can decide
whether I want to do it or not. Show me whether I’m to be married or not. Show me where in the world
You want me to be and what You want me to do. If it’s Palm Beach or Laguna Beach or Honolulu or
some wonderful place like that, then maybe I’ll consider it a little more seriously.’
If we stop to analyse this attitude, we should be shocked, for what we are doing is insulting
God. We are saying, ‘I think I know better than You, God. I don’t trust You. If I let You run my life, You
are going to short-change me.’ It is a solemn thing to realise this. That concept of God should make us
shudder because it is blasphemous!
We need to have the tremendous truth of Romans 8.32 deeply planted in our
hearts. ‘He that spared not his own Son, but delivered him up for us all, how shall he not with him also
freely give us all things?’ If you can get hold of that verse, memorise it, meditate on it, and allow it to get
hold of you, you will have solved your problem with desire for the will of God, because you will realise
the God Who loved us enough to die for us (when we did not care for Him) is not about to cheat when
we give our lives to Him.
In light of the character of God I dislike intensely the phrase ‘surrender to the will of God’.
To me that implies kicking and struggling. It is like saying, ‘There is no other way out. I am running, but
I am caught. I have to collapse and surrender. It’s all over. I give up.’
I far prefer the term, ‘affirm the will of God’. If we had any sense at all, every one of us
would affirm God’s will with confidence and with joy and with deep satisfaction.
This prerequisite is therefore crucial. It involves eliminating any hold-out areas in your life
- a relationship, an ambition, or a qualification. There will be no more saying, ‘I’ll go anywhere, Lord,
but . . . ’ or ‘I’ll go and do anything, but it’s got to be with so-and-so.’ Rather we will say, ‘Everything I
am and have belongs to You. I’m not my own; I’m bought with a price - the precious blood of Christ -
and I consciously and joyfully commit myself to You. Do with me as You choose.’ And when we come
to that place, we will be able to say with Paul, from the depths of our hearts, ‘To me to live is
Christ’ (Philippians 1.21).
In addition to specific commands, there are principles in the Word of God that may
have direct implications for our situation. Several years ago I knew a young woman who had
signed a contract to teach. In August she received another offer from a school nearer to where she
wanted to live. So she broke the original contract. She should have acted on the biblical principle in
Psalm 15.4 where God says that He is pleased with a person who swears to his own hurt and
does not change. This young woman justified her action saying, ‘I have peace about it.’ I believe that girl
missed the will of God. She violated a principle which, if she had been alert and had applied it to her
situation, would have given her clear guidance in this specific detail of her life. God guides, then,
through His Word and its principles.
In addition to this, God guides us in prayer as we ask Him to show us His
will. At the Urbana Convention in 1948, Dr Norton Sterrett asked, ‘How many of you who are
concerned about the will of God spend five minutes a day asking Him to show you His will?’ It was as if
somebody had grabbed me by the throat. At that time I was an undergraduate concerned about what I
should do when I graduated from the university. I was going to this meeting, reading that book, trying to
find somebody’s little formula to figure out the will of God. I was doing everything but getting into the
presence of God and asking Him to show me. May I ask the same question: Do you spend even five
minutes a day specifically asking God to show you His will?
As we pray, God often gives us a conviction by the Holy Spirit which deepens to an
increasing sense of rightness about a course of action. This is quite different from the ‘gung ho’ emotion
which prods us today to get on a plane to Hong Kong, and tomorrow to move into Chicago, and the next
day to paddle a canoe up the Amazon. When the Holy Spirit begins to move in our hearts, one conviction
deepens and, while we recognise other situations, we sense that this is the will of God for us.
Also, God guides and directs us through circumstances. Here, however, we
must be particularly on guard. Most of us tend to make circumstances 99 percent of the guidance. But
they are only one of the factors. Furthermore, we must view circumstances from God’s perspective and
values; they may be more of a guide negatively than positively.
For instance, if you think that God is leading you to go to graduate school in engineering,
but you cannot get into any school in this country or abroad, it may be fairly clear that God does not want
you in engineering school. On the other hand, the fact that you are accepted into three engineering
schools does not necessarily mean that God wants you to go into engineering. There are other factors to
consider.
You may graduate from the university and have fifteen job offers, but that does not
necessarily mean that God wants you to accept any of them. He may have a prior claim on your life that
will involve your going into a far corner of the earth. You may even be called of God to do something
that the average non-Christian would consider a tragic waste of time and talent.
Familiarise yourself with the needs of the world. While it is quite true that in itself a need
is not a call, the overwhelming needs everywhere cannot be ignored. The old illustration of a log carried
by nine men on one end and three women on the other may be trite and corny but it has a profound point:
which end of the log will you help carry? It is a fact that 90 percent of full-time Christian workers are in
parts of the world which have 10 percent of the world’s population; 10 percent of them are in population
centres comprising 90 percent of the world’s population. Surely this is not the will of God since He has
already told us in His Word that He wants every person to hear the Gospel. Millions of people have
never heard the Gospel at all.
In his leaflet Don’t Wait for the Macedonians, David Howard asks, ‘Why
should anyone seek more specific direction to serve the Lord overseas than he does to serve in any other
capacity or location?’ It may well be that we should make every effort to go overseas unless God clearly
calls us to stay home, rather than the reverse. And as you make the effort, as you begin to move, God
will guide. God can close doors very easily. But, as the old saying goes, you can’t steer a parked car; you
can’t pilot a moored ship.
God will also guide you through circumstances as you get involved in evangelism where
you are. It is foolish to think of travelling to some other part of the world if God isn’t already using you
in the lives of people around you now.
Ask God to enable you to share the greatest thing in all of life - the love of Jesus - and to
articulate the Gospel to your friends. If you are able to get through to American, Canadian and
international students on your own campus, God may then put a fire in your bones that will move you to
some other part of the world.
Furthermore, God guides us through the counsel of other Christians who are fully
committed to the will of God and who know us well. This is one of the most neglected dimensions
of guidance today.
It sounds terribly spiritual to say, ‘God led me,’ but I am always suspicious of a person
who implies that he has a personal pipeline to God. When no one else senses that what the person
suggests is the will of God, then we had better be careful. God has been blamed for the most outlandish
things by people who have confused their own inverted pride with His will.
Are you wondering about marriage? Whether God might use you in an overseas situation?
Talk to some of your mature Christian friends, your pastor, elders in your church, and others who know
you and are themselves concerned for the will of God. Their counsel may be invaluable. It is true that
sometimes we get mixed counsel from Christian friends, but their advice is frequently helpful.
Remember what Acts 15.28 records, ‘For it seemed good to the Holy Ghost, and to us.’
I believe God usually guides in that way - a personal conviction corroborated by friends’
opinions. Don’t be afraid to talk to people whom you think might give you advice you don’t want to
hear. You may be too emotionally involved in a situation to see it objectively and need somebody to talk
straight to you so that you can be realistic in your assessments.
When all four of these factors - the Word of God, conviction that He gives us in prayer,
circumstances, and the counsel of mature Christian friends - converge, it is usually a sign that God is
leading and guiding us.
We must guard very carefully against the subtle temptation to decide what we are
going to do for God. There is a vast difference between saying, ‘Lord, I’m going to be a business
executive (or missionary or whatever) for You,’ and asking, ‘Lord, what will You have me to do?’ The
Lord has not asked you to decide what you are going to be. Rather, He has invited you to be a recruit and
say to the Commander-in-Chief, ‘Here I am. Where in the battle line do You want me?’
We must guard against the temptation to take Bible verses out of context to get
God’s will. Some people treat the Bible as a book of magic. You have probably heard of the
fellow who opened the Bible and put his finger down on the phrase, ‘he [Judas] went and
hanged himself.’ That did not comfort him very much, so he tried again. And his finger fell on the verse,
‘Go, and do thou likewise.’ That shook him terribly so he tried it one more time, and the verse he hit on
was, ‘That thou doest, do quickly.’
The biblical principle is to interpret and understand the Bible in context. When this is
violated, God gets blamed for all kinds of things which are merely human foolishness. I remember a
British girl several years ago who was sure God was going to give her a visa for the USA because a
Bible verse (Isaiah 41.2) spoke about God raising up a righteous man from the east. I asked
her, ‘What about the rest of the verse that says God is going to use him to destroy people with the
sword?’ She did not get a visa. God did not fail. She did - because she violated the principle of
interpreting Scripture in context.
We must avoid the mistake of thinking that we can be sure we are in the will of God
if everything is moonlight and roses, and if we have no problems or stress. Frequently, just when
we take a step of obedience, the bottom falls out of everything. Then only the confidence that we are in
the will of God keeps us going.
Never forget the incident recorded in Mark 4. The disciples, at the Lord’s
command, had got into a boat to head across the Sea of Galilee. After they took this step of obedience,
the storm broke loose and they thought they were going to lose their lives.
In Mark 5 Jairus came to our Lord saying, ‘My daughter’s sick. Will You
come and heal her?’ The Lord said He would, and Jairus’ spirit soared. But on the way a lady, who had
had a medical problem for twelve years and who surely could have waited another two hours, interrupted
them and Jesus became involved with her. Jairus’ servants came and said, ‘Look, don’t bother Him any
longer. Your daughter has died.’
Jairus had done what was right - had followed Christ’s will and obeyed. He must have
been crushed in bitter despair. But our Lord’s words to him come to us as well in similar circumstances:
‘Be not afraid, only believe.’ The test of whether you are in the will of God is not how rosy your
circumstances are, but whether you are obeying Him.
Finally, I want to suggest that we should avoid the mistake of thinking that if we have
ever knowingly and deliberately disobeyed the Lord, we are forever thrown on the ash heap, can never
do the Lord’s will, and are doomed to ‘second best’. God has the most wonderful ways of
re-weaving the strands of our lives. He takes us where we are when we come to Him in confession and
repentance and uses us fully again.
John Mark is a good example. He seemed to have lost all when he went on a missionary
trip with Paul. At the first stop he left and headed back for Jerusalem. But it seems that Mark was
redeemed by God and later had a full and fruitful ministry that Paul commended.
When you are feeling bad and know you have sinned, remember Peter too. He denied the
Lord. But our Lord took hold of him, restored him, and made him a great apostle who has given us a part
of the Word of God.
What is God’s will for you? Realise, first, that God’s will in most of its aspects is already
fully revealed. Be sure you are familiar with it in the Word of God.
In those areas about which He has not been specific, be assured God will guide you through His Word and its principles as you seek His face in prayer, as you view the
circumstances from His point of view, and seek the counsel of other Christians. Then, when you can say,
‘Lord, I want to do Your will more than anything else in life,’ you will know where in the world and how
in the world God wants you to serve Him. He will show you what His will for you is today and the next
day and the day after that.
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