Not My Will, But Thy Will Be Done

What is God's will for your life? Rick Warren, Christian self-help maven to the masses, wrote Purpose-Driven Life. I'm sad to admit this, but the book did not help me find my purpose. It has helped many people, so it must be me.

I do feel that I have a purpose though, quite clearly. Actually, for me, more than one purpose guides my life.

1. To be a good steward in regards to rearing my children in a way that allows them to fufill their potential. To raise them to love God.
2. To help other people reach their potential.

Pretty simple, right? What about other important stuff? Yes, I want to be a good Christian, wife, friend, sister, daughter, yadda yadda yadda. That's like a Miss America contestant saying "My wish is for world peace." Don't we all want that, honey? I mean who wants to fail at marriage, friendship and family and most of all their relationship with their Creator?

My concern is more mundane when it comes to doing God's will. The over-riding purpose of our lives gets clouded by the every day occurrences in our lives.

Little decisions that tack the ship slightly this way or that have huge long-term affects on the ultimate destination. And so far, God has yet to sky-write directions for my life.

One pastor gave a sermon and said, "It is easier to steer a moving car." Meaning, that when you sit and wait for direction, you often don't move, but once we move we often get steered or stopped when we veer off-course.

That sounds a lot like living your own will. Few of us will have a Road to Damascus experience where we are explicitly told by God we are to do "this." In fact, Paul was going about his merry business torturing Christians in God's name. God doesn't seem to condemn this, does he? He merely redirects him. Paul, it should be noted, was much harder on himself, labelling himself the "chief sinner."

An irritating Christian phenomenon (Muslim too, for that matter) is to claim "God's direction" when it is clear that the person is doing what he or she wants--if it's good for God that's incidental. A man at church who won't look for a new job because "God doesn't want us to be focused on money." (His family doesn't have enough money for groceries.) "Evangelists" who ply a church for money to sponser a "ministry" that serves them alone.

Christians say, "God willing". Muslims say, "En Shala".

I say, "Oy."

Being human means to have choice. Our choices should be informed by love-centered principles but they are still our choices. There are many paths we can take. The harder ones lead us away from mission, away from purpose, away from God.

Like Jonah, we can seek to avoid our purpose, but it will find us. Jonah could still have bailed even when dumped onto Ninevah's shores. He could have. He chose not to. As it was he managed to sulk after doing the job and refuse to get God's point.

If you believe that God knows the hairs on your head, that He knew you in the womb, that He has a reason for you to be on the planet, then it would seem well to get to work. There are many ways to serve God, sitting around doing nothing waiting seems like guaranteed failure.