Coffee Stains: Will God’s Will Make You Do Something Miserable?

Do you ever think that if you fully obeyed God, He’d tell you to do a lot of things you didn’t want to?

‘Marry that really ugly man to prove that you love me,’ we expect God to say. Or, ‘Go live in a mud hut if the jungle of Lower Slobovia and then I’ll know you’re obedient.’

God spoke to one young Christian to go to Southern California but he was sure that wasn’t God’s will, because he wanted to do it. He figured the Lord had penciled him in for someplace really cold because he didn’t like cold places.

It’s true that God often asks us to do things that seem difficult and unappealing, things which stretch us and make us grow. I can’t say I’m always jumping up and down with joy when I leave my kids and grandkids to do the Lord’s will. I’ve found a richness in his will, though it isn’t always easy. Quite frankly, God’s will isn’t determined by the fact that something is attractive or unattractive.

Tough Decision

Once I had a decision to make and I was praying about it. I wanted to do the thing but I didn’t know if it was God’s will for me or not. The question came during a period when I really felt close to the Lord. It may shock you to hear, but emotionally, I don’t always feel close to Him. Often I just go in faith, knowing what He said in His Word. I am close whether I feel it or not.

As I prayed about this opportunity the scripture came to my heart, ‘Delight yourself in the LORD and he will give you the desires of your heart.” (Psalms 37:4) I realized that the Lord was my delight, so the thing that my heart desired to do must have been His will! I did it, and it was one of the highlights of my ministry to this point.

Of course, what you desire to do must be according to the Word of God, but if your delight is in Him, it will be. Maybe the challenge is not so much to ‘find’ God’s will as it is to simply fall madly in love with Him and see what desires flow from that relationship.

And God wills success for those desires He put in us.

“we constantly pray for you, that our God may count you worthy of his calling, and that by his power he may fulfill every good purpose of yours and every act prompted by your faith.” (2 Thessa. 1 :11, NIV)

The Message version says it like this, ”we pray for you all the time, pray that our God will make you fit for what he’s called you to be, pray that he’ll fill your good ideas and acts of faith with his own energy so that it all amounts to something. If your life honors the name of Jesus, he will honor you.”

Yup, I must confess that I get a lot of desires when I’m full of myself and those aren’t always His will, even if they are good things. But I’ve found that when I’m full of Him and desire to please Him, the thing that my heart jumps up and down wanting to do is usually from Him.

Are you seeking His will for your life? Do you love Him with all your heart? Then take a look inside you and see what desires are there. Chances are, that’s his will for you.

Hmmm …

“If you’re merely born, and you grow up, marry, have children, grow old and die, how are you better than an animal? That’s all animals do-live, procreate, die. We’re humans, not animals. We’re meant to change our generation, and to change our communities, and to change our world for good.” Lillian Thrasher (Miss Thrasher felt a call to mission and broke her engagement with an evangelist shortly before marriage, went to Egypt in 1910 with almost nothing, and started an orphanage which eventually cared for 1200 kids. She died in 1961 after seeing God’s provision for fifty years. This from a single woman in an Eastern culture). Quote is from Life with a Purpose by Jim Durkin.