Does God have only one will for my life?

Does God only have one will for your life? Does God only have one will for my life? That’s the question we’re faced with today. If you missed my sermon this past Sunday, we took a look at how God speaks and shows us his will for our lives. And we looked at how God being our good shepherd, Jesus being our good shepherd, leads the sheep, and the sheep follow and recognize his voice.

And so we talk about how to hear. And this coming Sunday, we’re going to be talking about how to respond to God’s voice. But it leads us to this question of, okay, but if I hear God’s voice regarding his will for my life, how do I know that that’s his will for my life? And what if I miss it? Is that his only will for my life?

What if I miss it? Is my life doomed for the rest of my life? That’s a big question. And a lot of stress comes around that sort of thing. Well, when we look at scripture, there’s Scripture talks about God’s will in a couple of different ways.

There is one side of the coin would be God’s will of decree, which would be something that God has ordained from eternity past, something that God has set in motion because he is sovereign and over the universe. These are things that are immutable and fixed and cannot be transgressed in any way because it is God’s will of decree.

He has decreed that something will happen similar to in Genesis 1, where God says, let there be light and creation comes forth. And there are other aspects of God’s will of decree, and you can’t get around God’s will of decree at all. Another type of aspect of God’s will that we see in Scripture, though, is God’s will of desire.

And these are things that God has commanded in the sense of God’s will of decree. Describing the way that things are, God’s will of desire is really more the way that things ought to to be. These are things that God commands us to do. It is his will, for instance, that we not love this world or the things in this world.

It is God’s will that we be conformed more and more to the image of Jesus.

It is God’s will of desire that we be holy, that we be set apart, that we guard our tongue, and that we set our mind and our heart on things above. Those are things that God desires. And those desires can indeed be thwarted. God’s will of decree cannot be thwarted. It is ordained.

But God’s will of desire can absolutely be thwarted by our disobedience or by the enemy coming in and taking our eyes off of what God wants. And that’s where temptation comes in. And so those are the two primary types of wills that we see in Scripture. God’s will of decree and his will of desire. What we seem to be, I think, most interested in is what I would call God’s will of direction, which is, God, what do you want me to do with my life?

Should I move here? Should I take this job? Should I stop doing this? And we are looking for God’s secret will of direction. And the reality is, is that Scripture doesn’t have as much to say about, yes, you should move to this city, or no, you should not take this job.

And so that leaves us quite confused as to, well, then how do we figure it out? Here’s the bottom line. Does God have a secret will for your life, a will of direction that he expects you to figure out and solve before you do anything, before you obey? And I would submit to you that the answer to that question is no.

Now, does God have a desire for you to draw near to Him?

Absolutely. Does he want to give you wisdom? Does he want you to ask for wisdom? Of course. Is God going to be with you on the journey as you make decisions about should we move here, should I do this?

And where you’re trying to figure out direction, God will direct your steps. Trust in the Lord. Proverbs 3, 5, 6, says, in all your ways, acknowledge him, and he’s going to direct your path. And praise God for that. But in terms of, do I need to wait for God to reveal this secret will of direction before I do anything?

And I again would say that the answer to that is no. That God’s will of direction is not so much a choose your own adventure novel or a corn maze, that you have to figure it out. And that God, sitting up in heaven, watching us flounder around, and he’s just kind of watching us and going, well, I guess they can’t figure out this secret will, so their life is going to be doomed.

Friends, I believe that God is a gentle shepherd and that he is a loving heavenly father that wants his children to trust him and to trust our decisions that we make as being as unto the Lord and as he puts something before us. And it might be an open door or might be a closed door, it might be a conversation or something, a desire that God has put in your heart.

But God will direct your steps when you come to him regarding his will of direction. And if you happen to miss his will of direction. It’s not that that is going to doom you forever. God can still work because he is sovereign and over all things and because he loves you and because God can provide for you in amazing ways.

So we don’t want to just simply wait around.

Waiting for God to reveal his will of direction for your life can be problematic because then it makes us feel more godly by not doing something. Well, I guess I’m just kind of waiting around. You don’t have to wait to take a next step in terms of direction. You can seek out God’s open doors and his leading and then you can move into that.

So when it comes to God’s will of decree, we should trust Him.

When it comes to God’s will of will of desire for our lives, we need to obey. When it comes to his will of direction, we need to seek him out and seek first the kingdom of God and trust that he will direct our steps in all of our ways and trust that if we happen to miss what we think is the only thing that is out there that he wants me to do and I just miss this job or I miss this relationship and my life is doomed, we can trust that he is always ever good.

Continue to seek Him. I hope that this encourages you. We have such freedom to know that this burden to figure out God’s secret will of direction for our lives is not all on our shoulders.

It’s not all up to you. Isn’t that encouraging? It’s encouraging to me. Well, I hope that this has been helpful to you as I know it has been to me. Thanks so much for joining us today.