Understanding God's WillSample

On day 1 of this plan, we saw how God's will for our lives is to be more Christ-like and how we're all called to seek first the kingdom of God and His righteousness, and if we do that, all the other things in our lives that we're worried about will be taken care of.

On day 2, we saw how the apostles lived out God's will by seeking Him first and then just taking steps of faith by doing things, and we saw how the Holy Spirit guided them as they were on the move.

We also saw how we can seek God first by spending more time in prayer, getting others to pray for us, taking counsel from others, and seeking His will in His Word.

Now, it's easy to get to this point and go, 'Yay, if I understand God's will, then I can finally do what is right and what's best for me.' The problem is, that that's not always the case.

You see, we think that the problem is that we don't know or don't understand God's will, but many times the problem is that we do know God's will, and we find it, and we understand it, and we just don't like it.

So many of us read God's Word or understand His specific will for our lives and just go, 'No way, that can't be it, that's way too hard.'

We start having these thoughts that say, 'That's way too much to give up,' or maybe, 'No, that can't be God. God wouldn't want that. God didn't really mean that, did He?' or 'The Bible is an outdated book; it just doesn't apply in today's culture.'

We end up calling those passages of Scripture the problem passages, and we end up trusting in our hearts more than we trust God.

Now, that may sound like a nice thing, but it really isn't. You see, no one in your life is going to disappoint you as much as your own heart.

Here's the thing: as long as you are alive, you and God are never going to agree on everything. If God agrees with you on everything, then it's some sort of false idea of God that you're worshiping.

Think about it. If you're reading this Bible plan, you're probably around 20 years old, or 30, or maybe 40, or 50, or maybe even 60 years old.

God is infinite years old; He has no beginning; He is the beginning. He is all-wise, all-powerful, and all-knowing.

Do you really think that if there's an all-powerful and all-wise and all-knowing God who's been running the universe since the beginning of time, there aren't going to be things that you and Him disagree on?

And in these cases of disagreement, who do you think is going to be right?

It can be scary to follow God or to obey His Word, especially when we don't understand Him. But we've got to remember that His ways are so much higher, His thoughts are so much wiser, and there are just some things that He knows that we don't. And everything He does, He does it out of love.

Charles Spurgeon put it this way:

God is too good to be unkind, and He's too wise to be mistaken. And when we cannot trace His hand, we must trust His heart.

So maybe it's time we start trusting God more than we trust ourselves, trust that He really does have our best interests in His heart, even when we don't understand Him.

Maybe it's time we recognize the real problem: not that we don't understand God's will, but that we do, and we just don't like it. And in these cases, the problem isn't with Him, but it is with us.

And we get to ask Him to help us. We get to ask Him to be with us as we struggle through it and help us believe. And we get to trust that in His love, He will do just that.