How to Understand God’s Will
Recently I received a question from a reader that I thought was an excellent question and worthy of sharing…
“How can we understand about God’s will for us? I’ve been struggling with the feeling that I may have done something out of His plan, and it saddens me so much.”
I think this is something that many of us have wondered about at one time or another. How do we understand God’s will, and what happens if we feel like we’ve missed it or did something opposed to His will? This week I’d like to discuss a couple of ways to understand God’s will, and also address what happens if we miss it.
We ALL miss God’s will sometimes…
First let me say, don’t beat yourself up too much if you feel like you’ve done something out of God’s will or plan. We ALL have “shoulda, coulda, woulda’s”. I screw up all the time! 🙂 The cool thing I’ve learned is that I can never mess up so much that God can’t fix it or even use it. God can turn anything around. I wrote about that in “Mistakes Can Turn Into Success” if you want to see an example in the Bible. Romans 8:28 says “And we know that God causes everything to work together for the good of those who love God and are called according to his purpose for them.” So if you know you’ve messed up, repent (admit it, apologize and don’t do it again), and then ask God to fix it or work it out to be something good.
God’s will is in His Word
As for understanding God’s will, I’ve learned that the best way to learn and understand God’s will is by reading the Bible. His will is in His word.
Romans 12:2 says “Don’t copy the behavior and customs of this world, but let God transform you into a new person by changing the way you think. Then you will learn to know God’s will for you, which is good and pleasing and perfect.” Other versions say “renewing your mind…to discern what God’s will is”. We renew our mind by reading the Bible.
God’s will or plan will NEVER contradict what the Bible says. For example, God’s will is never for someone to have an affair because the Bible clearly calls that adultery, which is a sin. Another example is that God’s will is never for somebody to go to hell because God is “not willing that any should perish, but that all should come to repentance” (2 Peter 3:9). Unfortunately, I’ve heard both of these examples used as “God’s will”, but they both contradict scripture.
Ask God to show you His will
I’ve also learned that I can ASK God to show me what His will or His plan is. James 4:2 says, “You have not because you ask not.” That means if we want something we need to ask for it. The same can be true when trying to understand God’s will—We just need to ask.
So first I pray (i.e. God, please help me to understand your will and plan in this area…). Then secondly, I just spend some time reading the Bible. I usually just do this in my regular daily quiet times, and I try to pay attention to anything that stands out. A lot of times God will answer my question (usually not right away though) in some of the verses I read.
