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

by Kevin DeYoung

And as you engage in these practices, don’t forget to make a decision—always with wisdom, always with freedom, and sometimes even with speed.

I prayed that I would make a decision based on faith, hope, and love—and not the praise of man and greed and selfish ambition. In other words, I prayed that I would be following God’s will of desire rather than praying to figure out His will of direction.

But we’ve taken this notion of calling and turned it upside down, so instead of finding purpose in every kind of work, we are madly looking for the one job that will fulfill our purpose in life.

Oof

Nothing is impossible with God, so go ahead and run hard after your big plans and take a shot at your dream job. But remember that in almost any job, God can be pleased with your work so long as you are taking pleasure in Him as you do it.

(That’s the thing about wisdom; it’s less of a detailed road map and more of a way to make decisions in many different situations.)

You want to yoke yourself to someone who is going to be plowing in the same direction you are.

The church, for her part, needs to do a better job reaching out to singles, not treating them like misfits or as simply married people waiting to happen.

However, the biblical formula for marriage is not half a person plus half a person equals one completed puzzle of a person. Genesis math says one plus one equals one (Genesis 2:24).

The problem with the myth of “the one” is that it assumes that affection is the glue that holds the marriage together, when really it is your commitment to marriage that safeguards the affection.

Short Life of Jonathan Edwards,

But instead of “letting go and letting God,” we need to make every effort to grow up in our faith (2 Peter 1:5ff).

“I felt like God was waiting for me to get involved.” I wonder how many of us are just the opposite—waiting for God to tell us what to do rather than assuming He’s waiting for us to go out and be obedient.

certainly did something rather than nothing. He worked hard, took chances, showed constant initiative, and, by his own account, lived a pretty fulfilled life—all without searching desperately for fulfillment. He prayed, but didn’t hyper-spiritualize his every move. He had several different jobs, but never in hopes of finding the next best thing.

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

It would be bad enough if we were just restless, meandering through life, and a little cowardly. But we’ve spiritualized restless and meandering cowardice, making it feel like piety instead of passivity. We’re not only living lives of vanity; our passion for God is often nothing more than a passion to have God make our search for vanity a successful one.

In one sense, we trust in the will of God as His sovereign plan for our future. In another sense, we obey the will of God as His good word for our lives. In no sense should we be scrambling around trying to turn to the right page in our personal choose-your-own-adventure novel.

In other words, 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.

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, wherever you like, and you’ll be walking in the will of God.

Amen!