God's Will Hunting

The will of God has become an ever-increasing topic among Christians today. With the amount of material on finding God's will a rational human being would wonder why we are so confused and worried about finding it. I'm reading a book entitled "Let the Reader Understand" (McCartney/Clayton) for my hermeneutics class. The last chapter is dedicated to helping the reader rightly understand (no pun intended) how to find God's will and the numerous misconceptions we have about this process. I wanted to share some of what the authors have written, thus giving me a better a better understanding of this subject.

First, I want to go back to chapter 9 and establish the foundation of my purpose. The chapter as a whole is dedicated to "The Bible in Worship and Witness." It covers the use of Scripture in public and private worship, and in evangelism. The authors state that the purpose of public teaching is "for the hearers to interact with the God's Word, to come under the influence of its author," the author being God himself, of course (p. 249). What then happens by way of this influence is conformity to the author, because we become like those we spend the most time with. "We absorb their values and standards, their likes and dislikes, their goals and presuppositions." As God's influence grows in our lives, we not only become more knowledgeable of his ways, but we develop an agreement with them. Paul says in Romans 12:2, a classic “go-to” verse on this subject, “Do not be conformed to this world, but be transformed by the renewal of your mind, that by testing you may discern what is the will of God, what is good and acceptable and perfect.” The renewing of our minds comes through the influence of God’s word as we study and meditate on Scripture. This in turn will play out in our lives. As our minds are renewed to become more like that of God’s, though finite, so too will our actions reflect his. Some of you might be seeing where this is going but I will continue.

This biggest misconception of God’s will is the idea that it is something hidden and we must find it, thus the terminology used in contemporary Christian circles. Scripture nowhere warrants such truth nor provides a formula for doing so. But if we are to understand and follow God’s will, why is the Bible seemingly ambiguous about how to do it? Again, misconceptions abound because of wrong interpretation of the Greek words we translate as ‘will.’ I am not going to dive into etymology here, as its absence will not hinder my purpose.

As I read through this chapter I made the connection between what Ch. 9 said about being under God’s influence, which causes conformity to His character and to finding God’s will in Ch. 10. In Ephesians 5:1 Paul commands the church to “be imitators of God.” To be an imitator of God simply means to act like God. We have seen that a life that reflects God comes from knowing him as we spend time with him. The Bible tells us that God is righteous and kind in all of his ways (Ps 145:17). So if we act like God, as we imitate him so too will we be righteous and kind in our ways. Of course we will not always do so because we are still sinful people, but our lives will increasingly be godly in nature.

I don’t want this conclusion to be overly simplistic but we make so much of “finding God’s will” when it is not nearly as difficult as we make it. As we sit under the influence of God through study and meditation we will become more knowledgeable of his ways and our lives will be conformed to his character. If our lives are conformed to his character, we will make choices that he would make. God always acts justly and rightly. So we will act justly and rightly as we become more like him. How can we not do his will if we are in conformity to his own character?