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| The Youngest Son's Farewell, Adolph Tideman |
What a delight to look at the front of the fridge and see children of friends who are growing up, graduating from high school and college, getting married, and having babies! Pictures and announcements and invitations to share in their joy. What a blessing!
Knowing all of them, each is contemplating a decision or has made a decision of one sort or another about God's will. I hope they've asked the right question. The wrong question--What is God's will for my life? The right question--What is God's will? There's a vast difference in the questions.
The wrong question--What is God's will for my life?-- has me as the focus. My life. My individual, personalized plan. There's a tendency to be concerned about ourselves and how everything affects us or applies to us. Surely, it's a good thing to know what God wants us to do in the big and small of life. We do want the best God has for us. Isn't the best place to be in the center of God's will? Isn't that where we'll find greatest contentment and happiness? But it's still really all about us.
The right question--What is God's will?-- has God as the focus. God's will. He gave us His will in His Word. If we focus on God and are continually in His Word, we'll begin to understand His will more clearly. And as we step into the light of His Word and walk in His ways, we begin to live out His will--for every follower of Jesus Christ.
It's the BIG things in life that we tend to think more specifically about God's will--Where should we go to college? Who should we marry? What job should we take? Where should we live? Should we move? We want something on the radar screen, specifically for us. But if we're living in the light of His Word, there can be several choices for us--all in the realm of His righteousness and moral will.
What job should I take, for example? In understanding the whole of Scripture, God's will for me is to be a keeper of the home, a nurturer of my children, a wife who does her husband good, a Titus 2 woman, especially to my daughters, but to other young women as well. Therefore, my job radiates from my home. I wouldn't have much time or energies for marketplace employment. But on the other hand, there are other considerations as well, all within the realm of God's purposes in His Word. My children are married, so I have some available time for other "ministries of reconciliation." And that could be a myriad of righteous choices. I might have time to join a quilting group for the furtherance of the gospel. Then on the other hand, my husband may want me more available to be his helper. And so the decisions go.
Thinking and living out the wisdom of God's Word. Knowing and doing the will of God. It can be confusing--if we don't ask the right question.
Painting ~ The Youngest Son's Farewell 1866, Adolph Tidemand 1814-1876
via Wikimedia Commons public domain
