Preparing To Receive God's Will

Preparing to Receive Gods Will

Romans 12:1-2 Jan 9th, 2011

Every Christian should be occupied with finding the will of God. They should be obsessed with finding the will of God. If only finding our way into God’s will was as easy as turning on a GPS. Finding our way geographically is so easy now.

I really like GPS’s. I used to have one until last summer I exposed it to one too many torrential downpours – well it was supposed to be waterproof, but I guess it still isn’t smart to let electronics be out in driving rain. Anyway now, when I go somewhere new, I have to prepare; Google maps or a road atlas; I’m back to doing it the hard way.

It would be nice to have a GPS for God’s will – a Godliness Positioning System. Hit the “find God’s will button” and the Godliness Positioning system plots a course and points you in the right direction. When I was a teenager I was surrounded by temptation. I thank God that He blessed me with a dad who liked to talk to me – especially if I was ever up really late – he would wait up for me. I’d come in the house and he would make me sit down and “rap”. Usually I just wanted to get to bed, but really – I deeply appreciated that he cared about me and I liked to talk to him. There was one thing that bothered me though – he would never tell me what to do. I could tell him about a decision I had to make and ask; “what should I do” and he would say: “what do you think you should do?” I would tell him about something that was really bothering me and ask him “what can I do about it” and he would say “what do you think you should do about that”.

I think secretly he wanted to be a psychiatrist and he was taking out his secret aspiration on me; “And how did that make you feel?”, he would ask - but I wanted answers and instead of giving me answers, he asked questions ... to help me find my own answers. Funny how at the time you never realize how your parents really are smarter than you.

The people who really love us usually know better than to run our lives for us. They know that giving someone something doesn’t help as much as showing them how to get it. God is like that and that is why He hasn’t given us electronic devices to know His will. It wouldn’t be good for us to get the answer without the work. He doesn’t spoil His children. If He ever caved, answering our every prayer with a “yes child – here you go”; soon we would be praying for BMW’s and indoor swimming pools.

God’s wisdom is so different than what we want. We want clear answers to instantly solve our problems. We are ruined by the advertisers are more than eager to do that for us. Buy ACME roll-on deodorant and all your wildest dreams will come true. Use BRUT aftershave and you will have to chase off the girls with pointed sticks.

They make some really outlandish promises:

At a gas station: eat here and get gas

On the road: if this sign is underwater the road is flooded

At a gift store: we exchange anything; bring in your wife for some good bargains

In the paper: Dog for sale – eats anything – fond of children

Funeral parlour: ask about our layaway plan

Some of the decisions we make don’t matter so much, but others take time, take prayer, take reasoning and take counsel. Questions like: who should I marry? Young men – the best thing you can do to help you figure this out is to ask your mother. Young women: ask your father. They have years of reflection on their own experiences and their opinions are not clouded by infatuation.

Questions like: What career path should I pursue? God will help you with this question, but don’t expect him to drop it in your lap. He will help you work it out, He will prepare you for it, He will make a path for it, but the whole process of the decision MUST be a process that you go through; don’t be impatient – keep asking him.

Knowing God’s will is never as easy as we wish it would be. Who hasn’t sat up late at night and prayed, “God give me a sign God send fog or bright lights or gold dust and I will never doubt You again.”

I like the movie The Sound of Music. Julie Andrews plays a potential nun who ends up not becoming a nun, but getting married to a widower with 7 children. At one point in the movie the head nun asks her; “what have you learned here” and she replies “to learn God’s will and do it wholeheartedly.”