Enjoying

God’s Will for You

At first thought, God’s will seems so oppressively restrictive that it’s frightening. And we’re scared we’ll be told to go somewhere awful and do something embarrassing. In reality, for us to fear God’s commands is as unnatural as a much loved baby fearing its mother’s breast; as a shivering child fearing sunshine; as someone sick fearing health. To obey God is to say good-bye to mistakes and regret and open the door to excitement and achievement.

No one understands you like your Maker. No one knows your future like your God. No one has your best interest at heart like the One who shed his blood for you. No one can bring you happiness like the Inventor of sex and sunsets, sight and sound, touch and taste, life and beauty. He alone offers heaven.

When you really analyze it, nothing could be more exciting, fulfilling and rewarding than God’s desires for you. Fearing God’s will is as irrational as worrying about what the world’s best mechanic might do to your car, and as stupid as insisting on defusing a bomb for fear that experts will not do it properly. The Almighty, your Creator and Savior, is selflessly devoted to maximizing your happiness. Moreover he has infinite knowledge. When God asks you to do something, he is granting you the unique privilege of tapping into the greatest Mind in the universe. You have the opportunity to do something infinitely smart. Explore that thought more later. It could add a whole new dimension to your life.

Disregard your Maker’s right to tell you what to do. He merely gave you life and everything you’ve ever touched. He holds your atoms together and gave you the brain cells you think with. Forget that Christ purchased your allegiance by trading his life for yours, becoming the devil’s plaything on the cross so that evil couldn’t touch you. And overlook the power of God to determine your eternal destiny. Consider merely God’s infinite knowledge, perfect goodness, and self-sacrificing devotion to your highest good. That alone is enough to force the conclusion that disregarding God’s slightest suggestion is the height of stupidity.

Yet another exhilarating thing about God’s will for you is that it is not only perfected by infinite love, it is backed by infinite power. It is not only achievable, it is unstoppable. For as long as you let Jesus rule your life, nothing can thwart it. Do you believe God is all-powerful? Then you believe he could over-ride your every weakness. He could ask nothing of you that he couldn’t do through you. And if he has a speck of love, or any respect for his reputation, he’s not going to command, and then abandon you to your own resources. It’s exciting when God asks the impossible of you. A miracle is around the corner!

Since God, in his love, longs to see you reach your highest potential, his desires for you will stretch you to the limit. But no matter how Satan tries to distort that thrilling truth into something scary, there is always something more frightening than doing God’s will - not doing God’s will. The mere fact that we could fear God’s beautiful will is clear proof that God has a spiritual enemy who carpet bombs our minds with malicious untruths. Nothing could be wiser, or better, than obeying the God who has a sacrificial commitment to giving you the very best.

God telling you to do something is the Almighty Lord expressing his desire for you to enjoy his best. And obedience is simply receiving that love, delighting and rejoicing in the beauty, perfection and security of God’s yearnings for your welfare. We only disobey when we secretly believe we are smarter than God, that his love for us is inferior, or that he is so weak that our inadequacies could nullify his power. Obedience is love made real.

It has rightly been said that God’s will is the greatest good his infinite wisdom can devise. Snuggle into it. Experience the exquisite perfection of his love plans for you. Then luxuriate in the security of knowing that of every possible alternative, you have chosen the very best.

Note that submission to God is letting God be God - allowing Jesus to assume his rightful place in your life. The emphasis is not on you trying to obey, but on Jesus ruling. It is letting him do the work. It is avoiding taking upon ourselves responsibilities that don’t belong to us. The Evil One would love to distort this into a dreary put down, but it is actually a glorious relief. We’re free to enjoy life as God’s children and leave all the hard work to Jesus. We don’t have to prove ourselves to God, Jesus has already done it. We don’t have to defeat sin, Jesus has already done it.

Submitting to God must never be thought of as obeying a set of rules. That’s dull and cold. And God is neither. Following a list of dos and do nots is not following God the person, but something impersonal. It brings with it the great danger of shutting God out. Submitting to God is loving God the person, getting as close to him as you can, and drawing strength and comfort and direction from him. It is driving with God in the front seat with you, enjoying his companionship. From time to time in your conversation he will say such things as, ‘Turn left . . . You’ll need to slow down a bit here . . . Let me show you a short cut . . . This next part is easy, drive however you choose, I know you’ll handle it well . . . Further on it gets tricky. Better let me do the driving for that stretch.’

Now let’s be brutally frank. God’s directions are seldom that clear, although when the situation demands that degree of clarity, he will give it. Mostly, God leads by such things as vague feelings. That can be frustrating, but it’s our opportunity to let faith rise, trusting God to guide with whatever degree of clarity divine wisdom knows is best, while we play our part by drawing close and listening intently. God and I seem to have an on-going argument. ‘Speak louder!’ I keep telling God. And I think he keeps replying, ‘Listen harder!’

Why God’s Will is Exciting

      When you have a critical decision to make, what would you give for access to someone with infinite knowledge?
      He would know every fact in every universe; all the future and all the past.
      He could keep you fascinated for weeks just telling you things about yourself you never knew. He could tell you how many inches the nail of the third toe on your left foot grew in the last 6.34 years; how many breaths you took on your fifth day of life; what your father thought the day he first heard you were conceived; the real reason your first romance ended the way it did; what forgotten incident caused that peculiar fear that plagues you.
      All your enemies’ secrets would be open to him. He would know what that fabulous looking stranger in the bus thought of you. He would know what your boss thinks while he’s having a shower.
      What if he also had the astounding intellectual power to know every ramification of every tiny event – every chain of events set off for all eternity by every action? The implications of such knowledge explode the imagination. And he could figure the exact mix of short and long term happiness that would work best for you. If we pampered ourselves all day everyday, our long term happiness would suffer enormously, yet sacrificing everything for long term benefits could leave us so dejected that we never reach our final goals. He would have your perfect solution.
      Suppose he also knows the true function and purpose of everything.
      And imagine the implications if his integrity and moral judgment are impeccable. He would be absolutely good and know how to maximize the good in every situation.
      Wouldn’t having his input be the greatest thing that could ever happen to you?

      So great is God’s love for you that he longs to marshal his infinite resources to determine precisely what is in your best interest. And he selflessly offers this incomparable gift, not just for ten minutes, but for a lifetime.

      How can we book a flight when we don’t know which one will crash? And yet we regularly make far more dangerous choices by the hour, knowing almost none of the pertinent facts.
      We choose marriage partners, having no idea how the ravages of time will assault them, whether tomorrow they will be permanently paralyzed or lose their mind or die; not knowing how wildly their future income and expenditure will plunge or soar; not knowing whether their unborn children will be deformed or hateful and how they will treat them; not knowing, if or when, our prospective partners’ kindness will turn to cruelty and their love to disgust. Forgetting the future, we know frighteningly little even about their past. A basic thing like reading their thoughts is beyond us.

      We repeatedly find ourselves trying to solve million piece puzzles when we rarely get to see more than a dozen pieces. We walk in a constant fog, making life and death decisions, knowing nearly nothing. So whenever the Almighty reveals his mind, we should erupt with the joy of a man lost in a minefield suddenly finding a marked trail. At last the light has shone. At last infinite knowledge has reached us in infinite love. We should rush to obey, treasuring the slightest hint of God’s will, like the last drop of water in a desert.

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