Transcript

Wow, the will of God, what a big topic. How to know the will of God, how to discern the will of God. Well, theologically, what the Bible presents is there are two primary forms of the will of God. God’s secret will, those are the planning of His sovereignty that is in His own counsel not known to us; and God’s revealed will, they’re written on the pages of His word.

There is no call in scripture to try to divine or discern the secret will of God. Please hear what I’m about to say. The secret will of God is called the secret will of God because it’s secret. Man, if I tried to figure that out and try to read the tea leaves of the future, who knows where I’m going to go? The safest place to be is “I want to give my life to knowing and understanding and living inside of the boundaries of the revealed will of God”.

Now, here’s how it works. You don’t have to guide yourself. God will guide you. I’m sitting here, answering these questions. I never thought for a moment I would be doing this. I could’ve never written my story. What I tried to do is live in the context of the revealed word of God, along with the community of the people of God, and God continued to write my story. That’s the way it works. You can trust God to do that.

There’s so much anxiety that’s the result of trying to figure out God’s secret will. Let me give you an example. I knew that Luella and I had forged in our engagement a relationship inside of God’s boundaries. I knew that we stimulated good biblical character in one another, but the day before I got married, I didn’t actually know for sure this woman would be my wife. Oh, we had planned the wedding and the whole party was there, but who knows what would’ve happened? It could’ve been that God would’ve taken one of us away at that point.

Our focus was on resting in God’s guidance as we sought to build a healthy relationship as defined by the word of God. Focus yourself on the revealed will of God and watch God guide.