What is God’s Will for Your Life Anyway?

In my youth, I routinely asked God what His will was for my life. Now, at almost forty-four years of age, it recently dawned on me that I haven’t asked this question in years. Here’s the reason why: “today” is the will of God.

The will of God is not something you find but rather something you live. And since God resides with you in the moment, this very moment represents His will.

I didn’t understand this in my youth. At twenty-four, I wondered what my life might be like at forty-four. Now that I’ve arrived, looking back over these last years I’ve strung together a lot of days, each one representing God’s will, each one having taken me many places.

I’ve experienced the joy of marriage to my wife, Tina, but the pain of not being able to have children. In the sorrow of not having children, I’ve experienced the elation of Tina telling me she was pregnant. While waiting peacefully for our son, Truman, to arrive, I quickly grew anxious when an emergency C-Section was required to save his life. I’ve been through yet another high point at the birth of a second son, Calvin, yet immediately fallen into concern at the fact he wasn’t breathing. (After seven long days, we finally got to take him home).

Time doesn’t allow me to connect all the dots in other areas of my life, and quite frankly, you probably don’t care to listen. But you do have the time to allow your mind to roll back through your own life, remembering the stops you’ve made along the way.

I imagine you too have traversed some peaks and valleys. Some resulting from what others have done to you or for you, while still others because of your own doing. But whether life fell for you or against you, because of what you chose or what others chose for you, God strung together His will for your life one-moment-at-a-time. Time itself, and our lives on this earth, serve as the canvas on which God paints His will. After all, is it possible for anything to happen that is not God’s will? [pullquote]The will of God is not something you find but rather something you live.[/pullquote]So, whether in good or bad experiences, God’s will has been done, and since you’re reading this right now, for you one thing is perfectly clear: you’ve made it to “today.”

If you’re like me, you probably have more years on the backside of the mountain than the side you’re currently walking down. Meaning, I’m not so sure that I want to spend today wondering about a future that is so quickly running out. Perhaps that’s why we spend so much of our time just trying to make it through the day.

But life holds so much more meaning than just trying to survive. Have you ever stopped to consider that no two lives ever live the same? God just won’t allow this to happen. Through each person, God uniquely expresses Himself. Yes, He gives us all mercy and grace, love and correction, hope and faith. Yet how, and in what way He delivers these things to you remain exclusively yours. You are a one-of-a-kind, walking, talking expression of God.

Yet, all of us at times look to the past, and seeing some rather dark nights, wonder how any of these black moments could possibly have been in God’s will. Looking back at the times when you crossed the line into sin, or fell victim to someone else crossing that same line, makes it difficult to imagine that such ugliness could serve as God’s will. Yet, in reality, what you experience—again as a result of our own doing or what others did to you—assists God in bringing about what He wants most in your life: a greater revelation and expression of Christ.

To experience the beauty of a flower requires that you set your eyes upon it. Taking a quick sniff of its sweetness just enhances the beauty even more. But to truly take in the flower’s fragrance, sometimes you must pull off the petals and rub them between your fingers. Crushing the flower might extinguish its beauty, but doing so releases a burst of perfume-like aroma.

With all the failure (and being failed upon) littering your past, God has forsaken giving you a “perfectly beautiful life” in order that through you, He might release the fragrance of the One and only Life—Jesus. In exchange for giving up your beautiful life, God releases a beautiful Life through you.

Today, God’s will for your life is simply that you choose. Right now, in this moment. To make a choice in how you will live this moment is God’s will. And although a choice for Him or against Him will yield very different results, regardless of the decisions you make, He will take your choices and use them for the greater revelation of Christ in your life. There’s no running away from God, because if you do, you’ll just run into Him somewhere else down the road. God moves and works in everything.

So where does all this leave you? Simply refuse to fret about tomorrow and just go out and live God’s will for your life today.

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