God's Will

"But seek first his kingdom and his righteousness, and all these things will be given to you as well."-Matthew 6:33

The longer I live, the more I realize that life is uncertain. We cannot predict what will happen, nor can we control our circumstances. The only time we can really ever be sure of is the present moment.

For years now, I have agonized over the will of God for my life. But more and more I am realizing that God's will is not a question of where I should go or what I should do, nor is it a question of who I should marry, or whether I should be a missionary or not. God's will for my life is that "I seek first His kingdom", and by doing that, the choices I make concerning the future will be God's will for my life.

Sometimes I wish God would just tell me exactly what to do, where to go, and how to chose, but "Jesus only requires that I make sure my heart is good, motives pure, and my basic direction is right, and then I can, in good concience, choose from among many reasonable alternatives and continue to do the will of God." (Jerry Sittser)

For the past week or so, I have been reading through Donald Miller's book "A Million Miles in a Thousand Years". What I have loved about this book is that it calls you to "brutal honestly about your life. It calls you to write and then live a better story with your life, while acknowledging that there is a Writer above you also writing your story." One of my favorite lines from the book is Donald's perspective on the Bible's instructions for living a meaningful life:

"It is interesting that in the Bible, in the book of Ecclesiastes, the only practical advice given about living a meaningful life is to find a job you like, enjoy your marriage, and obey God. It's as though God is saying, Write a good story, take somebody with you, and let me help."- Donald Miller

The more insight the Lord gives me on determining His will, the more I am encouraged. Knowing that the daily choices we make to honor and serve God determine whether we are doing His will brings me peace. Praise be to God that we already know the will of God for our daily lives, how ever cloudy the future may be.

"We had to learn... that it did not matter what we expected from life, but rather what life expected from us. We needed to stop asking about the meaning of life but instead to think of ourselves as those who were being questioned by life, daily and hourly. Our answer must consist not in talk and meditation, but in right action and in right conduct. Life ultimately means taking the responsibility to find the right answer to its problems and to fulfill the tasks which it constantly sets for the individual." -Victor Frankl