What is God's Will for My Life?

(Image courtesy of https://registrar.eku.edu.)

Currently, high school seniors are rushing around trying to decide what college they should attend in the fall. If they have any thought of God, they are probably asking, “What is God’s will for my life?”

What is at the root of this question? For some, it could be their pursuit of happiness. For others it might be a true desire to please God even if that means sacrificing their desires. Still, the very nature of this question – what is God’s will for my life? – is ambiguous, as allusive as Sasquatch. I don’t think current Christian culture is helping the matter either.

God’s will isn’t ambiguous or impossible to find. In fact, God’s will is clearly outlined in Scripture (as we shall see later). When it comes to future decisions, God isn’t unclear about that either. The book of Proverbs, for instance, teaches us to consider a decision and then choose the best option (e.g., Prov 31:16). However, little time will be spent by most parents and high school seniors considering if college is a wise decision. Ability, desire, and past work ethic are rarely considered because college has become a cultural expectation in many groups. It’s all part of the path to “making good money.”

Without a doubt, Jeremiah 29:11 will continue to be the most misused verse in all of Scripture. Contrary to popular thought, Jeremiah did not write this passage of Scripture about your career choice; he wrote it to proclaim the hope of God’s salvation for his people that were exiled from their promised homeland.

In fact, God’s will for your life is bigger than your college or career choice. I encourage Christians to break free from the Machine dictating their lives that continually produces a life pattern like the one below:

Maybe during the career stage, after we’ve spent the first thirty years of our lives living for our wants and our desires and our success, then (maybe) we’ll entertain the thought of marriage and children – two very selfless and humble callings, which are counterintuitive to how we’ve already lived our first decades of life. This, simply put, isn't morally right or even wise.

Certainly, work is important. After all, it is necessary. Even before the fall into sin, God gave work to Adam and Eve. Work is not a result of the curse due to sin; difficult work is the result of the curse.

Additionally, we need to rethink our definition of work today. My son got up the other morning and grabbed a pair of blue jeans to put on. He announced, “I’m putting on my work clothes today.” My three-year old son doesn’t have a career that identifies his work, yet he acknowledges that work is good and he wants to do it. Work is more than punching a timecard or signing a contract for a specified salary.

Today, humanity’s highest vocations (“work as a calling”) are mostly neglected. When God created Adam, he gave him Eve. Thus, marriage was instituted as a foundational relationship in our world, underneath a relationship with our Creator. When Adam and Eve were married, God gave them offspring in order to fulfill God’s creation mandate to be fruitful and multiply. In other words, they had kids. This is the model God gave us. Adam and Eve were not pursuing lives isolated from each other; they were made for each other to live life to its fullest. Simply put, society dissolves when we break free from the family.

Looking back on history, the West is suffering the effects of bad theology made popular in the 1960s. Feminism drove women into fighting for equality with men, which is an impossible ideal. By nature, men and women have different roles because that’s how God created us. Still, in one generation’s time, women in scores have left the home to pursue careers outside the home, neglecting their God-given duties:

“But as for you, teach what accords with sound doctrine. Older men are to be sober-minded, dignified, self-controlled, sound in faith, in love, and in steadfastness. Older women likewise are to be reverent in behavior, not slanderers or slaves to much wine. They are to teach what is good, and so train the young women to love their husbands and children, to be self-controlled, pure, working at home, kind, and submissive to their own husbands, that the word of God may not be reviled. Likewise, urge the younger men to be self-controlled. Show yourself in all respects to be a model of good works, and in your teaching show integrity, dignity, and sound speech that cannot be condemned, so that an opponent may be put to shame, having nothing evil to say about us. Bondservants are to be submissive to their own masters in everything; they are to be well-pleasing, not argumentative, not pilfering, but showing all good faith, so that in everything they may adorn the doctrine of God our Savior” (Titus 2:1-10).

Likewise, men have exchanged honorable work for ungodly pursuits. Things in the West are a mess and any insightful person knows it.

In our schools, the main question is this: are our high school seniors “college and career ready?” The mantra ought to be: are our seniors mature and equipped to raise a family? To the Christian, it ought to be even more specific: am I growing in my likeness to Christ?

This is exactly what Titus 2 is getting at. God is concerned with our character – which shows up most clearly in the home! Take a minute to read 1 Timothy 3. The qualifications for an elder (church leader) have a lot to do with what happens in the home. The man aspiring to church leadership must bear fruit in the most difficult place to bear fruit: his family.

I’ve spent the last decade teaching students. I have spent at least 50% of that time complaining about my job. I find my job dissatisfying on many days. I think all men could say the same thing, regardless of where they work. Why? We would probably say on those bad days that we’re not happy, that we’re unfulfilled in some way.

My flesh longs to make me happy. But God’s word commands me to live according to sound doctrine, not according to the desires of the flesh.

What’s my main point in all of this? What I’m trying to express is that the Christian must live according to the Word of God. The church currently is and has been in an identity crisis. We have forgotten who we are. Across the land today, groups are gathering in church buildings. A growing number have women in the pulpits. A growing number affirm sin and even encourage it. Is this in alignment with God's Word? Far from it!

For example, if you go to the websites of various Protestant denominations such as United Church of Christ, Evangelical Lutheran Church in America, and United Methodist Church, you will find statements of faith and belief that are rooted in historic Protestantism: statements on the Trinity, Jesus as God’s son, who died and rose again, etc. However, you will also find they are sexually immoral, even affirming the sin of homosexuality. You will find they have many other agendas outside the one the true church ought to have: to make disciples of Christ! You cannot have the truth of the gospel and deny sin! Sin is central to the message of the gospel!

In closing, the things I mentioned earlier are worth our time to consider. In Romans 12, Paul tells believers to “not be conformed to the pattern of this world, but to be transformed by the renewing of our minds.” How are our minds renewed? By the Word of God! I think we need to rethink things like college, work, and family and pay close attention to what God says to us, not what the culture says.

Again, we are left asking the question of “what is God’s will for my life?” Here’s the truth: God has already told us his will for our lives! His will for our lives that we live according to sound doctrine.

“Finally, then, brothers, we ask and urge you in the Lord Jesus, that as you received from us how you ought to walk and to please God, just as you are doing, that you do so more and more. For you know what instructions we gave you through the Lord Jesus. For this is the will of God, your sanctification [holiness]: that you abstain from sexual immorality; that each one of you know how to control his own body in holiness and honor, not in the passion of lust like the Gentiles who do not know God; that no one transgress and wrong his brother in this matter, because the Lord is an avenger in all these things, as we told you beforehand and solemnly warned you. For God has not called us for impurity, but in holiness. Therefore whoever disregards this, disregards not man but God, who gives his Holy Spirit to you” (1 Thes 4:1-8).

In a nutshell, this is the will of God: that we be like Christ. This is what God is working for in all circumstances anyway (see Romans 8:28-29).

Dear Christian, my hope and prayer is that you and I would conduct ourselves more like Christ and less like the world. Again, I think there are things we practice as a part of our culture that we take for granted as being good and right; however, I think we ought to do some reordering of our lives and priorities and align ourselves with the Truth from God’s Word more.