God's Will For Us

What is God's will?  was a question that made me very unsettled for a long time.  I wondered, "if God cares about and has a distinct choice I am to make to be in His will then this must encompass every single decision.  This includes from which path to take to work and what shoes to wear.  It literally liked to have drove me nuts.  I eventually through a pretty long and painful process figured out by I believe God's help that He is interested in our heart's attitude.  He will direct our steps if we fix our eyes on pleasing Him.  I just summed up in a couple sentences what took about two years for me to come to and I am still having to correct my thinking all the time.  

I am convinced so many christians are wasting their time worrying about following 'God's will for their lives' instead of seeing what Jesus says is important and incorporating those attributes by His help into our lives.  Many christians including myself have thought of God's will as either your in it or out of it.  The truth is if you are His child your in it.  What many of us have prescribed to in trying to follow God's will is a type of fortune-telling.  God has not, nor do I believe will tell us the specific future.  We are to place our hearts before Him to please Him and stop worrying about miniscule things.  You see, one problem with the either in or out way at looking at God's will is that it will make you unable to learn some really valuable lessons from people.  We may be afraid to question whether or not it is wrong to live luxuriously in this world of poverty because of a pastor that we know is a Godly man lives this way; or we may judge that a pastor is not in 'God's will' because we believe him to be living in overboard luxury.  The truth is throughout the day each of us can be in or out of God's desired will for us by where we have our hearts set.  This is the will we ought to all seek to follow. 

Man, I have been awakened again to the awesome news that being a christian means trusting and following Jesus.  If I do this I think I will find myself following the will of my Father.  If I started worrying more about seeking out the lost and hurting and helping them and loving my wife and little boy and students I wouldn't worry so much about the next career step.  Yes the career steps may change and surely I will have to make some decisions but the most important things will be set in place and make the other decisions have the right light on them.  

Anyway I have been greatly encouraged by a book I am reading called 'Searching for God Knows What' by Donald Miller.  Thanks to Allison Rouss for the Christmas gift.  I would recommend it to anyone.