Just Do Something: A Liberating Approach to Finding God's Will

by Kevin DeYoung

Perhaps your free spirit needs less freedom and more faithfulness. Maybe your emerging adulthood should … I don’t know, emerge.

Trusting in God’s will of decree is good. Following His will of desire is obedient. Waiting for God’s will of direction is a mess. It is bad for your life, harmful to your sanctification, and allows too many Christians to be passive tinkerers who strangely feel more spiritual the less they actually do.

The better way is the biblical way: Seek first the kingdom of God, and then trust that He will take care of our needs, even before we know what they are and where we’re going.

With so many choices, it’s no surprise that we are always thinking about the greener grass on the other side of the fence. We are always pondering what could be better or what might be nicer about something or someone new.

Our freedom to do anything and go anywhere ends up feeling like bondage more than liberty, because decision making feels like pain, not pleasure.

Esther was more man than most men I know, myself included. Many of us—men and women—are extremely passive and cowardly. We don’t take risks for God because we are obsessed with safety, security, and most of all, with the future.

Obsessing over the future is not how God wants us to live, because showing us the future is not God’s way. His way is to speak to us in the Scriptures and transform us by the renewing of our minds. His way is not a crystal ball. His way is wisdom. We should stop looking for God to reveal the future to us and remove all risk from our lives. We should start looking to God—His character and His promises—and thereby have confidence to take risks for His name’s sake.

God has a wonderful plan for your life—a plan that will take you through trial and triumph as you are transformed into the image of His Son

But God’s normal way of operation is not to show this plan to us ahead of time—in retrospect, maybe; in advance, rarely.

So we can stop pleading with God to show us the future, and start living and obeying like we are confident that He holds the future.

My point is that we should spend more time trying to figure out how to act justly, love mercy, and walk humbly with God (as instructed in Micah 6:8) as a doctor or lawyer and less time worrying about whether God wants us to be a doctor or lawyer.

We don’t just want His word that He will be with us; we want Him to show us the end from the beginning and prove to us that He can be trusted. We want to know what tomorrow will bring instead of being content with simple obedience on the journey.

And so we obsess about the future and we get anxious, because anxiety, after all, is simply living out the future before it gets here.

We must live our lives believing that all of our plans and strategies are subject to the immutable will of God. Therefore, we should be humble in looking to the future because we don’t control it; God does. And we should be hopeful in looking to the future because God controls it, not us.

His way is to show His holiness, declare us holy in Christ, then exhort us to grow in holiness in daily life. That’s God’s will of desire for you. And that’s His will of direction too.

He wants you to buy a house that will make you holy. If you marry, He wants you to get married so you can be holy. He wants you to have a job that will help you grow in holiness. Count on it: God’s will is always your sanctification. He has set you and me apart that we would grow to be more like Christ.

Paul the apostle gives three straightforward commands: “Rejoice always, pray without ceasing, give thanks in all circumstances; for this is the will of God in Christ Jesus for you”

And what is that will [of God]? Is it some specific, secret plan God has for us and wants us to spend days, weeks, even years discovering? Not at all. Rather it consists of a sober life, living in the power of the Holy Spirit, and offering praise and gratitude to God for his goodness. Paul’s main concern is about how believers conduct themselves in ordinary life.2

If you are seeking first the kingdom of God and His righteousness, you will be in God’s will, so just go out and do something.

But as an overarching principle, the will of God for your life is pretty straightforward: Be holy like Jesus, by the power of the Spirit, for the glory of God.

Hearing from God directly can be important and legitimate, but I certainly wouldn’t treat a special impression from the Lord as more special than the sure word of the Lord found in the Bible.

Remember, God’s will for your life is your sanctification, and God tends to use discomfort and trials more than comfort and ease to make us holy.

But wisdom is harder to find than information.

We have more information than ever before, and yet our wisdom has not kept pace with our knowledge. In fact, you could make a good case that where information has increased, wisdom has decreased.

Wisdom is what we need to live a godly life.

Wisdom is understanding the fear of the Lord and finding the knowledge of God.

To put these ways into familiar language, we could say we get wisdom by reading our Bibles (storing up God’s commands), listening to sound advice (turning our ears to wisdom), and praying to God (calling out for insight).

But the Bible is not a casebook. It doesn’t give us explicit information about dating or careers or when to build a church or buy a house. We’ve all wished that the Bible was that kind of book, but it’s not because God is interested in more than getting us to follow His to-do list; He wants transformation. God doesn’t want us to merely give external obedience to His commands. He wants us to know Him so intimately that His thoughts become our thoughts, His ways our ways, His affections our affections. God wants us to drink so deeply of the Scriptures that our heads and hearts are transformed so that we love what He loves and hate what He hates.

And that’s how it should be for the Christian: active in the present, grateful for the past, and hopeful for the future.

God’s will for your life and my life is simpler, harder, and easier than that. Simpler, because there are no secrets we must discover. Harder, because denying ourselves, living for others, and obeying God is more difficult than taking a new job and moving to Fargo. Easier, because as Augustine said, God commands what He wills and grants what He commands.

God gives His children the will to walk in His ways—not by revealing a series of next steps cloaked in shadows, but by giving us a heart to delight in His law.

So the end of the matter is this: Live for God. Obey the Scriptures. Think of others before yourself. Be holy. Love Jesus. And as you do these things, do whatever else you like, with whomever you like, wher...