- February 1st, 2006, 12:56 am
#2394
I thought I'd start some conversation about this...
Often times, we here the phrase, "God has a plan for your life" (I think that came from Bill Bright's campus crusade for Christ slogan). But how specific is that plan...some people thing that God has a certain person you are supposed to marry, similar to how God provided a bride for Isaac in Rebekah. They also say that God has a specific "career" that he wants you to spend your time doing (almost like a calling).
However, how concerned should we be with the individual will. Is this concept even in the Bible? How practical is it? Jay Adams mentioned in "A Theology of Christian Counseling" that sometimes an over-concern with finding "God's perfect will" is often a cause of psychological stress and this stress is reinforced by the pressure of churches.
Gary Freisen in "Decision Making and the Will of God" suggests the idea that there isn't a perfect individual will of God for each person...it's and interesting argument...I will make a case for it in a short summary below...just thought I'd get y'all thinking, and I thought a lot of students would be interested in this, because it has ramifications concerning career and relationship choices...
Here goes...my attempt to cram about 500 pages of thought into a couple of pages of text...
Often there’s confusion among Christian when it comes to decision making (careers, dating, marriage, family planning, etc.)
One reason for the confusion is that the Bible does not give us detailed rules regarding things like dating, how many children to have, who to marry, etc. A second problem is the misguided belief that says that each Christian is supposed to find and fulfill “God’s plan, or God’s Will” for their life (I.E. “God had a plan for your life”, etc.).
To make this simple, most evangelical Christians today separated God’s will into 3 basic areas:
God’s Sovereign Will – God’s secret plan that determines everything that happens in the universe.
Daniel 4:35
35 All the inhabitants of the earth are reputed as nothing;
He does according to His will in the army of heaven
And among the inhabitants of the earth.
No one can restrain His hand
Or say to Him, “What have You done?”
Job 38:31-32
31 “Can you hold back the movements of the stars? Are you able to restrain the Pleiades or Orion? 32 Can you ensure the proper sequence of the seasons or guide the constellation of the Bear with her cubs across the heavens?
God’s Moral Will – God’s revealed commands that teach us how to behave and live.
Romans 2:18
18 and know His will, and approve the things that are excellent, being instructed out of the law
God’s Individual Will – God’s ideal, detailed life plan, uniquely designed for each individual.
Proverbs 3:6
6 In all your ways acknowledge Him,
And He shall direct your paths.
Now I believe in the first two, that God has a Sovereign Will and God has a Moral Will. BUT I DO NOT BELIEVE THAT GOD HAS AN INDIVIDUAL WILL FOR EACH OF OUR LIVES. Quickly, I’ll try to show you why…
First, If God has a specific detailed plan for our life that we must follow, then any simple every day decision can make the difference between being in that perfect will, and forever being left out.
For example, look at the decisions we make every day. Does God have a will what color clothes I wear? Whether I wear blue jeans or black jeans? No. We are free to choose. God does however provide us with direction in the Bible on what to wear – Deuteronomy 22:5 tells us that a woman must not wear men’s clothing, nor a man wear women’s clothing, for the Lord your God detests anyone who does this. I Timothy 2:9 says that women should dress moderately, James 2:3 says that if we show special attention to the man wearing fine clothes, we have discriminated amongst ourselves, etc.
So it’s not about God having a plan for our life concerning what outfit we wear, we simply follow the principles revealed in the Word of God and make a decision based on the freedom that Christ gives us.
Regarding Marriage/Dating…
Well, then some people say that it doesn’t matter in the small things, but when it comes to the big things, like careers and marriage, then that’s when you need to know the individual will of God for your life. They use examples like how Abraham uses his servant to find Rebecca, the specific bride for Isaac. But this passage is descriptive – it describes what happened, not prescriptive. We don’t say, "If this girl brings me a glass of water, then she is the one for me." But isn’t that basically what happened? (Genesis 24:42-43). Secondly, Isaac was part of the genealogy of Christ, so there were special circumstances in which God had to direct this marriage, but this does not make this prescriptive for us today.
In all of the Biblical examples where God called someone out for a special purpose, it was accompanied by “supernatural occurrences”…i.e. burning bushes, directly audibly talking to them, bright blinding light (Paul on road to Damascus), etc. The only Biblical example of someone hearing the still, small voice of God was Elijah, I Kings 19:13 – and remember, he was fed by an angel the day before. These people were called out for specific tasks before the Bible was a completed book. As Baptists, if we believe that special revelation ceased (tongues, visions, etc.) at the completion of the Bible, the argument can be made that the calling out of people for specific purposes…as in a prophet, has ceased since the completion of the Bible as well.
The real problem is, how do we arbitrarily draw these lines on which decisions require a knowledge of God’s will? What college I chose to go to can determine the people that I will meet. And let’s say that you are applying to an Ivy League school that has a formal interview. Then what clothes I wear to the interview might affect if the admissions officer is going to cut me a break that allows me to go to the specific college and meet my specific wife. Meanwhile, I have to worry that God’s specific person for me is following His will in her college selection or location where she lives as well. And that she doesn’t go somewhere else and meet someone else – otherwise no matter what I do we may end up not meeting.
Regarding Careers
What about picking your job. Doesn’t God have an intended purpose that He wants us to fulfill, and so therefore we need to look for his guidance – (Proverbs 3:6 – 6 In all your ways acknowledge Him,
And He shall direct your paths.).
First of all, Proverbs 3:6 may have been mistranslated by the KJV…a more literal translation would be “He shall make your paths straight, or smooth”, as other translations, NAS, NRSV, and others translate it this way…remember, most of the OT was written from Hebrew, but when translating they also look at the Septuagint (I have no idea how to spell this off the top of my head), which is the Greek translation of the OT, and “guidance” came from a loose interpretation of a Greek word that means to make smooth or straight.
This verse doesn’t mean that God gives us direction concerning our future…it is better to understand it as saying, if we obey God’s moral will, God will make it easier for us to get where we want to go.
Individual Will people also point to examples of such people as David, who was anointed by Samuel as King over Israel; Joseph, who was told in a dream that his parents would bow before him; Abraham, who was told that he would be given the promised land. They point to these people as examples showing that God has a specific course we must find and fulfill regarding our life work.
First of all, even though people like David found out their future in advance they didn’t allow this to guide their decision making. When David was hiding from Saul in the cave, his servant said, let me pin Saul to the ground with my spear and fulfill the will of God (God had told David he would be king). What did David say, “It’s not for me to kill the Lord’s anointed”…in other words, it was the moral will of God (i.e. the principle of not killing the king of Israel that the Lord had put there) that directed David, even when he knew that God told him he would become king. Same goes for Joseph…after the dream he didn’t go into Egyptian ambassador training…He followed God’s moral will…even when it didn’t seem advantageous to do so (not having sex with Potipher’s wife).
Finally, Gideon is an even better example of how knowing God’s will is not something we should be concerned about. Gideon always wanted to know God’s will in advance. Thus the “putting out of the fleece”. But was Gideon’s use of the fleece evidence of his faith or evidence of lack of faith or trust in God. I believe it represents a lack of faith…needing to know God’s will before you act. In fact, after winning the victory against the Midianites, Gideon built a golden Ephod (what was an Ephod – it was a priestly garment that had 12 stones – some people think Gideon’s was different and had two golden rings, but the purpose of this garment was used to know God’s will…basically depending on how the light reflected off the stones, that would give you the answer to what you should do…almost like a crystal ball…Gideon made one of these and according to Judges 8:27, ”Then Gideon made it into an ephod and set it up in his city, Ophrah. And all Israel played the harlot with it there. It became a snare to Gideon and to his house”
How did they play the harlot with the Ephod? They turned the God who saved him into basically a crystal ball.
In Conclusion
You see when God put Adam and Eve in the garden, he told them they could eat the fruit of any tree except for the tree of the knowledge of good and evil. He didn’t direct their meals and plan what they should eat each day…he wanted them to decide this on their own.
God didn’t want us to be robots, and I don’t think he wants us to be anxious people trying to find out what He wants from us in the future. All He wants is for us to follow His moral will the best we can (i.e. 10 commandments…boiled down into Love the Lord with all your heart and Love your neighbor as yourself), and to bring other people to a knowledge of Him (The Great Commission, Matthew 28:19-20, Mark 16:15, Acts 1:8, etc…my translation…As you are going, make the people you meet come to know and become followers of Christ).
God actually gives you the freedom to choose your career. You don’t have to worry that if you pick the “wrong” one you will be out of “His Will”. Instead, rejoice and praise Him for the opportunities that He provides for you. Pray and study to know what is right and wrong – God’s moral will, and is long as what you are doing is acceptable to God in this way, it is an option that you are free to take. The same holds true for dating…don’t worry if this person is “the one”. If it seems to be a God honoring relationship, you are free to pursue it. Who knows where it will lead…and isn’t that what makes life fun (because if we knew how it all ended, what fun would it be…it would be like watching re-runs).
Ask God for wisdom…and ask God for discernment…but don’t get frustrated if He doesn’t direct your every move. God blessed us with abilities and relationships, and He wants us to use these areas to honor Him, but for most of us…(a few exceptions, where He will call someone out for a specific purpose) He wants us to accept His Son’s Sacrifice, tell others about Him, and be just, humble, and merciful in our relationships with others.
P.S. Most of this stuff is found in Friesen's Decision Making and the Will of God booklet...it's not like I'm smart enough to come up with things like this by myself...all I did was condense his arguments into a shorter version...
Often times, we here the phrase, "God has a plan for your life" (I think that came from Bill Bright's campus crusade for Christ slogan). But how specific is that plan...some people thing that God has a certain person you are supposed to marry, similar to how God provided a bride for Isaac in Rebekah. They also say that God has a specific "career" that he wants you to spend your time doing (almost like a calling).
However, how concerned should we be with the individual will. Is this concept even in the Bible? How practical is it? Jay Adams mentioned in "A Theology of Christian Counseling" that sometimes an over-concern with finding "God's perfect will" is often a cause of psychological stress and this stress is reinforced by the pressure of churches.
Gary Freisen in "Decision Making and the Will of God" suggests the idea that there isn't a perfect individual will of God for each person...it's and interesting argument...I will make a case for it in a short summary below...just thought I'd get y'all thinking, and I thought a lot of students would be interested in this, because it has ramifications concerning career and relationship choices...
Here goes...my attempt to cram about 500 pages of thought into a couple of pages of text...
Often there’s confusion among Christian when it comes to decision making (careers, dating, marriage, family planning, etc.)
One reason for the confusion is that the Bible does not give us detailed rules regarding things like dating, how many children to have, who to marry, etc. A second problem is the misguided belief that says that each Christian is supposed to find and fulfill “God’s plan, or God’s Will” for their life (I.E. “God had a plan for your life”, etc.).
To make this simple, most evangelical Christians today separated God’s will into 3 basic areas:
God’s Sovereign Will – God’s secret plan that determines everything that happens in the universe.
Daniel 4:35
35 All the inhabitants of the earth are reputed as nothing;
He does according to His will in the army of heaven
And among the inhabitants of the earth.
No one can restrain His hand
Or say to Him, “What have You done?”
Job 38:31-32
31 “Can you hold back the movements of the stars? Are you able to restrain the Pleiades or Orion? 32 Can you ensure the proper sequence of the seasons or guide the constellation of the Bear with her cubs across the heavens?
God’s Moral Will – God’s revealed commands that teach us how to behave and live.
Romans 2:18
18 and know His will, and approve the things that are excellent, being instructed out of the law
God’s Individual Will – God’s ideal, detailed life plan, uniquely designed for each individual.
Proverbs 3:6
6 In all your ways acknowledge Him,
And He shall direct your paths.
Now I believe in the first two, that God has a Sovereign Will and God has a Moral Will. BUT I DO NOT BELIEVE THAT GOD HAS AN INDIVIDUAL WILL FOR EACH OF OUR LIVES. Quickly, I’ll try to show you why…
First, If God has a specific detailed plan for our life that we must follow, then any simple every day decision can make the difference between being in that perfect will, and forever being left out.
For example, look at the decisions we make every day. Does God have a will what color clothes I wear? Whether I wear blue jeans or black jeans? No. We are free to choose. God does however provide us with direction in the Bible on what to wear – Deuteronomy 22:5 tells us that a woman must not wear men’s clothing, nor a man wear women’s clothing, for the Lord your God detests anyone who does this. I Timothy 2:9 says that women should dress moderately, James 2:3 says that if we show special attention to the man wearing fine clothes, we have discriminated amongst ourselves, etc.
So it’s not about God having a plan for our life concerning what outfit we wear, we simply follow the principles revealed in the Word of God and make a decision based on the freedom that Christ gives us.
Regarding Marriage/Dating…
Well, then some people say that it doesn’t matter in the small things, but when it comes to the big things, like careers and marriage, then that’s when you need to know the individual will of God for your life. They use examples like how Abraham uses his servant to find Rebecca, the specific bride for Isaac. But this passage is descriptive – it describes what happened, not prescriptive. We don’t say, "If this girl brings me a glass of water, then she is the one for me." But isn’t that basically what happened? (Genesis 24:42-43). Secondly, Isaac was part of the genealogy of Christ, so there were special circumstances in which God had to direct this marriage, but this does not make this prescriptive for us today.
In all of the Biblical examples where God called someone out for a special purpose, it was accompanied by “supernatural occurrences”…i.e. burning bushes, directly audibly talking to them, bright blinding light (Paul on road to Damascus), etc. The only Biblical example of someone hearing the still, small voice of God was Elijah, I Kings 19:13 – and remember, he was fed by an angel the day before. These people were called out for specific tasks before the Bible was a completed book. As Baptists, if we believe that special revelation ceased (tongues, visions, etc.) at the completion of the Bible, the argument can be made that the calling out of people for specific purposes…as in a prophet, has ceased since the completion of the Bible as well.
The real problem is, how do we arbitrarily draw these lines on which decisions require a knowledge of God’s will? What college I chose to go to can determine the people that I will meet. And let’s say that you are applying to an Ivy League school that has a formal interview. Then what clothes I wear to the interview might affect if the admissions officer is going to cut me a break that allows me to go to the specific college and meet my specific wife. Meanwhile, I have to worry that God’s specific person for me is following His will in her college selection or location where she lives as well. And that she doesn’t go somewhere else and meet someone else – otherwise no matter what I do we may end up not meeting.
Regarding Careers
What about picking your job. Doesn’t God have an intended purpose that He wants us to fulfill, and so therefore we need to look for his guidance – (Proverbs 3:6 – 6 In all your ways acknowledge Him,
And He shall direct your paths.).
First of all, Proverbs 3:6 may have been mistranslated by the KJV…a more literal translation would be “He shall make your paths straight, or smooth”, as other translations, NAS, NRSV, and others translate it this way…remember, most of the OT was written from Hebrew, but when translating they also look at the Septuagint (I have no idea how to spell this off the top of my head), which is the Greek translation of the OT, and “guidance” came from a loose interpretation of a Greek word that means to make smooth or straight.
This verse doesn’t mean that God gives us direction concerning our future…it is better to understand it as saying, if we obey God’s moral will, God will make it easier for us to get where we want to go.
Individual Will people also point to examples of such people as David, who was anointed by Samuel as King over Israel; Joseph, who was told in a dream that his parents would bow before him; Abraham, who was told that he would be given the promised land. They point to these people as examples showing that God has a specific course we must find and fulfill regarding our life work.
First of all, even though people like David found out their future in advance they didn’t allow this to guide their decision making. When David was hiding from Saul in the cave, his servant said, let me pin Saul to the ground with my spear and fulfill the will of God (God had told David he would be king). What did David say, “It’s not for me to kill the Lord’s anointed”…in other words, it was the moral will of God (i.e. the principle of not killing the king of Israel that the Lord had put there) that directed David, even when he knew that God told him he would become king. Same goes for Joseph…after the dream he didn’t go into Egyptian ambassador training…He followed God’s moral will…even when it didn’t seem advantageous to do so (not having sex with Potipher’s wife).
Finally, Gideon is an even better example of how knowing God’s will is not something we should be concerned about. Gideon always wanted to know God’s will in advance. Thus the “putting out of the fleece”. But was Gideon’s use of the fleece evidence of his faith or evidence of lack of faith or trust in God. I believe it represents a lack of faith…needing to know God’s will before you act. In fact, after winning the victory against the Midianites, Gideon built a golden Ephod (what was an Ephod – it was a priestly garment that had 12 stones – some people think Gideon’s was different and had two golden rings, but the purpose of this garment was used to know God’s will…basically depending on how the light reflected off the stones, that would give you the answer to what you should do…almost like a crystal ball…Gideon made one of these and according to Judges 8:27, ”Then Gideon made it into an ephod and set it up in his city, Ophrah. And all Israel played the harlot with it there. It became a snare to Gideon and to his house”
How did they play the harlot with the Ephod? They turned the God who saved him into basically a crystal ball.
In Conclusion
You see when God put Adam and Eve in the garden, he told them they could eat the fruit of any tree except for the tree of the knowledge of good and evil. He didn’t direct their meals and plan what they should eat each day…he wanted them to decide this on their own.
God didn’t want us to be robots, and I don’t think he wants us to be anxious people trying to find out what He wants from us in the future. All He wants is for us to follow His moral will the best we can (i.e. 10 commandments…boiled down into Love the Lord with all your heart and Love your neighbor as yourself), and to bring other people to a knowledge of Him (The Great Commission, Matthew 28:19-20, Mark 16:15, Acts 1:8, etc…my translation…As you are going, make the people you meet come to know and become followers of Christ).
God actually gives you the freedom to choose your career. You don’t have to worry that if you pick the “wrong” one you will be out of “His Will”. Instead, rejoice and praise Him for the opportunities that He provides for you. Pray and study to know what is right and wrong – God’s moral will, and is long as what you are doing is acceptable to God in this way, it is an option that you are free to take. The same holds true for dating…don’t worry if this person is “the one”. If it seems to be a God honoring relationship, you are free to pursue it. Who knows where it will lead…and isn’t that what makes life fun (because if we knew how it all ended, what fun would it be…it would be like watching re-runs).
Ask God for wisdom…and ask God for discernment…but don’t get frustrated if He doesn’t direct your every move. God blessed us with abilities and relationships, and He wants us to use these areas to honor Him, but for most of us…(a few exceptions, where He will call someone out for a specific purpose) He wants us to accept His Son’s Sacrifice, tell others about Him, and be just, humble, and merciful in our relationships with others.
P.S. Most of this stuff is found in Friesen's Decision Making and the Will of God booklet...it's not like I'm smart enough to come up with things like this by myself...all I did was condense his arguments into a shorter version...
Last edited by jimflamesfan on February 2nd, 2006, 12:22 am, edited 1 time in total.
- By tyndal23