I know I don’t know it. When I am praying, I don’t know it. When I am making an important decision, I don’t know it. When I am looking at the future, I don’t know it.
God’s will … I don’t know it.
I have been thinking about God’s will quite often lately. As I have been returning to work after a bit of an absence. As hubby and I look at what a new business could look like. As I have been praying for healing. As I try to envision personal purpose in this life God has given.
Then, just yesterday, as I was driving I heard this quote, definition really, by Nancy Leigh DeMoss
“God’s Will is
what we would choose
if we knew
what God knows”
and I have been mulling this over in my mind ever since.
I think we sometimes use God’s will and God’s heart interchangeably.
2 Timothy 3:16-17 tells us of the importance of the Word of God in knowing his heart, “all Scripture is inspired by God and is useful to teach us what is true and to make us realize what is wrong in our lives. It corrects us when we are wrong and teaches us to do what is right. God uses it to prepare and equip his people to do every good work.” If the Bible is, indeed the Word of God, to know it, to dig into it often, is the best way to know his heart.
But, his will … that, I think, is a different thing. His word does speak of his will:
We know that we have been instructed to pray, “your kingdom come, your will be done, on earth as it is in heaven” (Matthew 6:10).
We know that God “wants all people to be saved and to come to a knowledge of the truth” (1 Timothy 2:4). Similarly, that “he is patient with you, not wanting anyone to perish, but everyone to come to repentance” (2 Peter 3:9). And our repentance, our redemption is of such value, he made the biggest of sacrifices for us, “for God so loved the world, that he gave his only Son, that whoever believes in him should not perish but have eternal life” (John 3:16).
And maybe that is the will of God that we need to keep our focus on. Maybe it is imperative that the goal of our lives be our repentance, be our accepting of his love in our lives? Maybe, if we keep our own focus on the value of his redemption of humankind, we would then see that his will is not just our redemption, but the redemption of all around us. Maybe it would mean that we would live our lives as a sacrificial offering to the one who saves us. Maybe it would mean that we so reflect our God, that others cannot but help to be drawn to him.
itsawonderfilledlife 