God’s will for your life is in the Bible, but not in the way you may expect.
One of the ways we discover God’s will for our lives is by learning the principles of God’s word. For example, the Bible doesn’t tell us who we should marry, but it does tell us a lot about marriage and purity and what kind of person we should marry. The Bible doesn’t tell us where we should work, but it does teach us about the nature of work, about laziness, about submission to employers. The Bible doesn’t tell us exactly how to organize our personal finances, but it says a lot about generosity and helping others instead of just accumulating more for ourselves. The Bible doesn’t tell us exactly what church to join, but it does teach us that the local church is a basic part of one’s Christianity and that a Christian without one just doesn’t make sense.
The only way to learn these principles, these trajectories, is by consistent and careful study of God’s word. Listen to this counsel from John Piper in a sermon he preached in August 1982:
“Satan devotes himself 168 hours a week trying to deceive you and fill your mind with junk. He has seen to it that you are surrounded almost entirely by a Christless culture whose mood, and entertainment, and advertising, and recreation, and politics are shot through with lies about what you should feel and think and do. Do you think that in this atmosphere you can maintain a vigorous, powerful, free, renewed mind with a ten-minute glance at God’s book once a day? The reason there are church people who are basically secular like everyone else except with a religious veneer is that they devote 99% of their time absorbing the trajectories of the world and 1% of their time absorbing the trajectories of the Word. If you want to bring forth the will of God in your life like a mother brings forth a child, you must marry the Bible. For some of you it is a stranger that you greet on the way to work but never have over for a relaxed evening of conversation, and seldom invite along to spend significant time with you on vacation. Do not, then, be surprised if you are ill-equipped to read the trajectories of God’s will for your own life.”
Piper goes on to talk about how making a plan to read the Bible for long portions of time will result in the clouds of confusion lifting and the trajectory of God’s will for your life becoming clear, and even if the precise decision you need to make doesn’t become clear, you’ll experience a stabilizing and purifying of your mind. Give this a try and just see what happens.
God wants us to have his wisdom, and he has given us plentiful portions of it in the Bible. There are, of course, seasons that won’t allow for much time to study the Bible for long periods of time. Praise God for Bible apps and podcasts that will read the Bible to us! Whatever stage of life we are in, let’s ask God for wisdom and strength and a desire to get in his word so that his word will get into us. God aims to lessen the burden of decision-making by filling our heads and hearts with his wisdom. May he help us do this with joy and perseverance!
Struggling Forward, With You,
Pastor John