There is a BIG FAT LIE believed by many of us.
The lie is that God, in His omnipotent, omniscient wisdom, has a plan for every minute….every second…of every life on earth. That He is this Supreme Puppet-master pulling all the strings so that everything on earth happens “according to His will”…and that our role, in relation to His Will, is to figure it out and align ourselves with it. Well, it is true that our role is to align ourselves with God’s Will, but the idea of seeing His will as a complex, inter-related system of constant control is misleading.
When we read in scripture about “God’s Will,” it consistently seems to be couched in terms of our character being transformed into that of Christ….in other words “sanctification” – the process of being “set apart”, or “dedicated” to God. It’s about our character being transformed into who Jesus would be if He were me…or you. God’s will is that each one of us grow more and more, each day, into the image of Jesus. I think there’s a lot of flexibility inside of that. I do not believe that God has a specific plan for everything in my life. Many people I have known or read about have driven themselves crazy with a hyper-religious world view that God has predestined every aspect of our lives according to a complex master plan for every single little thing. Does God have master plans, even for specific things? Absolutely. But “every” specific thing? Does He care what you eat for lunch? What car you drive? What socks you wear? What team wins today’s big game? There can be great comfort in believing that we don’t have to make hard choices, because God wants to make them for us….but I think this type of thinking is short-sighted, immature, and untrue to God’s “revealed will” in scripture.
Instead of spending so much time trying to figure out God’s hypothetical plan, let’s spend our time & energy living-out what WE KNOW is God’s will, always: “Love, Joy, Peace, Patience, Kindness, Goodness, Faithfulness, Self-Control” in Galatians 5 is a good place to start.
