Series: Mythbusters
“God Has a Blueprint for My Life”
Ephesians 5:17; Romans 12:2
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We’re moving forward in our series of messages called Mythbusters. We’re looking at a variety of spiritual myths that people believe in and on which they build their lives. Today’s spiritual myth is “God Has a Blueprint for My Life.”
What do you do when it’s time to make a major decision? As Christians, most of us experience a heightened interest in discovering God’s will at that point in time. It’s not that we don’t care about God’s will the rest of the time, it’s just that when making a choice about a job opportunity, selecting a college, determining the future of a romantic relationship, or deciding where to live, we don’t want to blow it. So, we seek God’s will with extra fervor. We pray for it, ask about it, and search for it. We do those things in the hope that what God wants us to do become clear to us.
Simply put, this message is about how we approach determining God’s will for our lives.
Eph. 5:17 – Therefore do not be foolish, but understand what the Lord’s will is. We can know God’s will but we’ll never really know it unless we understand how it works.
We use several tactics in order to determine the will of God. Some of us look for signs, divine coincidences, and open doors that supposedly show us God’s leading. We want to see happen in our lives what happened to Gideon. We want to play the fleece game.
The story is found in the Old Testament book of Judges. God had told Gideon that he would use him to rescue the Hebrew people from their enemies. Gideon placed a fleece – a sheepskin – out on the ground and said that he would believe that it was God’s will if God would allow only the fleece to be wet with dew but not the ground the next morning. God did so. Gideon wasn’t convinced. He asked God to do just the opposite the next night and God did. You will hear some folks speak about laying a fleece before God to help them make a decision in some area of their lives.
We want the process for determining God’s will to be quick and easy. God doesn’t always deal with us the same way he dealt with Gideon. Determining God’s will for a certain situation is many times not quick nor is it easy.
Others look deep within, seeking a supernatural insight or a sense of inner peace to show the way. The problem here is that sometimes doing God’s will makes us very nervous and unsettled because operating by faith means being obedient – whether or not we know the outcome.
Still others play Bible roulette, flipping through pages of the Bible until they find a passage that seems to speak directly to their situation. That can be a dangerous process.
One fellow was seeking guidance for his life. He decided that he would just flip through the pages of the Bible, stop at a random page and point his finger at a passage. Wherever his finger landed, he was going to take that passage for his advice.
The first passage his finger landed on said, “Judas went out and hanged himself.” Seeing that, he was a bit confused and a little afraid. So, he flipped some more pages and pointed his finger at another passage. It said, “Go and do likewise.” Completely baffled, he tried a third time. It said, “Whatever you are to do, do so quickly.”
Some of us major in fact-finding and seeking wise counsel (or at least the advice of a few friends). Almost all of us pray a little more: Lord, show me your will – please! The more I’ve sought God’s will and watched others seek God’s will, I’ve become convinced that God’s will is both important AND elusive.
It’s important for obvious reasons. Any time God has a specific plan or a preference in mind, only a fool ignores it. A bigger fool defies it. Just ask Jonah. He discovered that defiance is not a good option. And so have I. I bet that you have, as well.
As for God’s will being elusive, it’s elusive because … well … it just is, isn’t it? That fact of life raises a troubling question. If God’s will is so important, why is it so hard to find? The answer to that question seems very surprising.
God’s will isn’t that hard to find. Most of God’s will is spelled out in black and white on the pages of the Bible. It’s not hidden. There’s no cosmic Easter egg hunt required to see who can find it and who gets left with an empty basket. Unfortunately, many of us approach understanding God’s will from that perspective.
For some of us, no matter how hard we search, we keep coming back with an empty basket. And here’s why: in many cases we’re looking for the wrong thing. We’re like a young child who mistakenly thinks that Easter eggs are square and polka-dotted so we walk right past the one thing we want the most all the while looking for something we’re never going to find.
The problem stems from a faulty assumption that we’ve held for a long time. We’ve been led to believe that God has a highly detailed blueprint for our lives that includes a specific, preordained job, career, house, car, spouse – and everything in between. As a result, we spend a lot of time looking for that special person, place or thing that we think God has set aside just for us. It’s the egg we hunt for.
The reality is that the particular shape of the egg we’re looking for doesn’t exist. The idea of a detailed blueprint for our life is a myth. It confuses God’s omniscience (God is all-knowing; there is nothing God doesn’t know) with His divine will. Now, there’s no question that God knows everything, down to the number of hairs on our heads but that doesn’t mean that he has a plan for how many hairs we have or that we’re in rebellion if we try to replace some of the ones that go missing.
Confusion
We have confused a blueprint with a game plan. God doesn’t have a blueprint for my life. He does, however, have a game plan for my life. The difference between a blueprint and a game plan is extremely important.
Consider how a blueprint works. A blueprint contains a specific set of instructions that spell out everything in detail. It’s so specific that anyone with the ability to read and follow a blueprint can build exactly what the architect had in mind. But imagine a builder who doesn’t agree with the architect’s design and ignores the parts of the blueprint he doesn’t like or understand.
When I was in high school, my parents decided to build a large multi-purpose room onto the back of our house. They worked at designing what they wanted. They found a contractor who had done some work for a business acquaintance of my dad. My parents communicated to him exactly what they wanted. They sketched it out with him.
He started construction on this addition to our house on a day that my parents were gone. They weren’t home and wouldn’t be back home until much later in the evening. I came home from school and, though I didn’t know much about building anything, I thought he and his helper weren’t doing what my parents asked. It was WAY before cell phones so I had no way to call my parents and really had no authority to make them stop.
When my parents came home that night, they were greatly disturbed. This fellow was supposed to build a “sunken” room with two steps down from the kitchen into this room. He ended up leaving room for only one short step down. He was supposed to use 2x6s 18” apart to build the floor joists. He used 2x8s 12” apart. (Let’s just say the floor is quite sturdy.) He was supposed to build a corner fireplace. He finished the floor first. (I found out later that you want to start the fireplace before you finish the floor.)
Dad fired him the next day. Come to find out from some other folks, this contractor did a great job when you let him build what he wanted but he was contrary. He didn’t want to build what you wanted and he was going to do everything to mess up what you wanted.
To finish the story, Dad and Mom hired another fellow who came after he finished work on another construction job. The project extended into the summer months. We had to do a lot of work ourselves to be ready for him when he got there but we worked around all the problems and built the room. We even found out that the first builder had things almost 2 ½” out-of-square starting from where the room came off the house and finished at the the back wall. Did we have to do a lot of cutting and matching and spackling with the dry wall!
A builder who doesn’t follow the blueprint will soon have some major problems on his hands. Along with facing the wrath of the architect, he’ll also have to answer to the building inspector. Even worse, he’ll eventually have to pay the cost of restoring everything back to what the plans originally called for. You don’t ignore the blueprints. You follow them. For many of us, the blueprint has become our metaphor for God’s will
A game plan is very different from a blueprint. Rather than spelling out everything in detail, a game plan sets forth general guidelines and principles, with freedom and flexibility for adjustments as the game unfolds.
Let’s use a football game for our example. For every play in the game plan, there are some “on-the-fly” adjustments built in. What starts out as a post pattern turns into an outlet pass or something else altogether if the linebackers blitz or the receivers aren’t open.
A seasoned quarterback will rarely throw the ball to a well-covered receiver just because that’s the way the play was originally designed. Maybe he tucks the ball and heads for the sidelines or runs the ball himself. But a quarterback who throws into coverage and gets intercepted on a regular basis finds himself riding the bench.
Now, that doesn’t mean that the quarterback can just do as he pleases. The quarterback can’t decide to run out of bounds and then sneak back onto the field. He can’t throw a pass to an ineligible receiver. Those moves aren’t allowed. But within the rules of the game, he has lots of options. If Plan A breaks down, the quarterback is expected to try something else to help move the ball toward the goal line.
That doesn’t work with a blueprint. A blueprint doesn’t have a Plan B. If Plan A gets messed up, everything is messed up. It’s back to the drawing board.
Catch
When we hear an offer that sounds too good to be true, we ask, “What’s the catch?” There’s a catch to the erroneous idea that God has a detailed blueprint to our lives.
There are lots of people who are uncomfortable at the thought that God might not have a detailed blueprint for every aspect of their life. It’s an idea that has become so ingrained in them that it’s become a source of comfort and assurance.
But really think about it for just a moment. What happens when, in a fallen world, other people decide to ignore God’s blueprints for their lives? It’s not so bad if they take our parking space but what if they buy the house God had picked out for us or r cheat on an employment exam and take the job we were supposed to have?
What happens, if, in a moment of spiritual rebellion, Joe Christian dates and marries the wrong woman? If God won’t allow that to happen, then we’re not much more than puppets on a string. If he does allow it, then Joe might have just put the whole world in a jam.
Here’s what I mean. According to the myth of the blueprint, the poor girl he was supposed to marry is stuck. Her blueprint is ruined forever. The same thing goes for the guy who was originally supposed to marry the woman Joe married. Now, unless the girl Joe was supposed to marry and the guy that Joe’s new wife was supposed to marry either stay single or marry one another, Joe may well have started a chain reaction what will eventually mess up marriages worldwide.
Don’t misunderstand what I’m saying. I’m not saying that God NEVER has a specific and highly detailed plan in mind. Sometimes He does. He told Hosea to marry Gomer. He told Moses and the children of Israel where to camp and when to move during their wanderings in the wilderness. He sent Jeremiah to a potter’s house and told him to watch for an object lesson. He changed the apostle Paul’s itinerary and wouldn’t allow him to go into Asia or Bithynia. But these kinds of explicit instructions are exceptions not the norm—even in the lives of those biblical people we’ve studied in Sunday School.
The fact is, we have much greater freedom than any blueprint would allow. That’s the main reason the details of God’s will sometimes seem hard to find. Many times the details simply aren’t there. We’re asking God, “Which one in this situation?” And He’s saying, “I don’t care. Pick one.”
In the vast majority of situations and decisions, we have great latitude. God doesn’t care where we work so much as He cares about how we work. God doesn’t care where we live so much as He cares about how we live.
It even applies to who we marry. For years, God blessed and worked through arranged marriages. I know that some of you would vehemently disagree with me, but God doesn’t necessarily care who we marry (as long as we marry another Christian) as much as he cares about how we do marriage.
If you’ll read the New Testament, you’ll notice there is little emphasis on the kinds of decisions we commonly stress over. Instead the primary emphasis is on godly character and daily obedience in our pattern of life.
Again, don’t misunderstand what I’m saying. It most certainly follows that when we’re faced with a decision, we should stop and check the Scriptures and ask God if he has any specific input. If he does (either through the Bible or the inner leading of the Holy Spirit), we must do exactly as he says. But we shouldn’t be surprised when most of the time his silence on the matter says, “It doesn’t matter to me. It’s your call.”
There are some other downsides to this blueprint mentality. Besides being an inaccurate and faulty metaphor for how God’s will actually works, it also tends to produce a couple of dangerous spiritual side effects.
The first spiritual side effect is paralyzing fear. Lots of Christians with this blueprint mentality towards God’s will are petrified of making a mistake. In the incorrect belief that there is only one right choice for every major area of life, it paralyzes their decision making. As a result we can end up hesitating, over-thinking, and rejecting lots of good and acceptable options. Some have termed this thinking as “paralysis by analysis”.
If the Bible tells us what to do, then by all means we should do it and do it right away. But if not, let’s just make the best choice we can and move on. After dying for our sins and paving the way for our adoption into his family, God is not going to doom us to a life of regret because we picked the wrong college, the wrong major, the wrong job, or even the wrong spouse. And even if we do make a mistake, there is always a path of obedience in every situation – even after some really stupid decisions. I know. I’ve been there. I’ve done that. It works out okay.
The other spiritual side effect of the blueprint mentality is that it tends to turn our focus to the wrong things. Instead of worrying about the weightier matters of godliness – like justice, mercy, and obedience – we fixate on finding the right career or the right house.
I’m not saying these decisions are unimportant. They’re very important. Decisions ultimately create destiny. But they aren’t nearly as important as a life of daily obedience to Jesus Christ.
People have asked me to pray for them about God’s will concerning marriage to someone they’re dating. The whole time, they’ve been ignoring God’s will for their sexuality. It’s like it’s never dawned on them that God might not bother to show them whom they should marry when they’re ignoring his instructions about how to date. The big mistake is the flawed assumption that choosing the right mate will trump living the wrong way.
What happens is that we treat God as a part-time blueprint consultant – someone we turn to for really big decisions, but someone who’s not particularly relevant on the day-to-day stuff. God doesn’t do consulting. He’s does God.
I’m painting with a broad brush stroke here. It’s not fair to say that everyone who sees God’s will as a detailed blueprint ignores God’s day-to-day commands. That’s clearly not the case. But a blueprint mind-set tends to turn our focus more towards finding than becoming. The blueprint mentality tends to be on what we find and not on what we become.
Comprehension
Seeing God’s will as a game plan is a far more accurate model of how his will works. All of the basic guidelines and principles are found in Scripture. And with the basics in hand, we can know what to do, what not to do, how to think, and how to live no matter how unusual the situation or how complex the decision may be.
But understand this: while grasping God’s game plan is pretty simple on the one hand, it’s also highly nuanced on the other. The longer we’re at it, the deeper and better our understanding becomes. And the really good news is that understanding God’s will is not out of reach for even the newest of Christians.
Let’s now look at some of the basics of finding God’s will. These are the things that, once mastered, will turn the process of finding and being in God’s will into a journey to become someone who is becoming like Jesus rather than a search to find something that is elusive.
The first thing we need to know about God’s will is that we should obey what we know. If we’ll focus on being obedient to the commands and instruction we already know, it will lead us to more light – further understanding of God’s will
That helps to explain why it’s such a waste of time to seek God’s leading for a major crossroads decision if we are currently disobeying him in the things we already know. We can pray all we want. But if we’re in the midst of disobedience, God won’t answer.
That’s why new Christians shouldn’t worry so much about all the things they don’t know. And the same goes for the rest of us. If we simply start with what we already know and then do it, the rest always comes in time.
The second thing we should know about discerning God’s will is that we should get the facts – as many as possible. The facts always matter, even in the spiritual realm.
A long time ago, Solomon noted that the wise and righteous check the facts before choosing a course of action, whereas fools don’t bother. They jump to conclusions, or ignore the facts altogether. Prov. 19:2-3 – Desire without knowledge is not good— how much more will hasty feet miss the way! 3 A person’s own folly leads to their ruin, yet their heart rages against the Lord
Biblical faith is not illogical. It doesn’t deny or ignore the facts. It fits the facts. Certainly we might not always understand what God is up to or how doing things his way can possibly work out in a particular situation but it is never illogical to do what God clearly tells us to do. That is the most logical thing in the world.
Using our brain is a big part of following any game plan, and especially God’s game plan. He gave us our brain for a reason. It’s always a good idea to use it.
The third thing we should know about God’s will is that we should think biblically. It’s very difficult for an athlete to follow a game plan if he misses all the team meetings. It’s just as hard to follow God’s game plan if we don’t know the Scriptures – what they actually say, as opposed to what we might think they say.
Sadly, the current state of biblical illiteracy among self-described Christians is far from encouraging. Do you remember when WWJD merchandise was so prevalent? People wore things that meant What Would Jesus Do? Most of them had no idea what Jesus would do because they didn’t know what he actually did.
It’s not enough to make our best guess. God’s game plan is way too counterintuitive for that. None of us is likely to come up with loving our enemies, serving those we lead, or keeping our word at all costs. Those kinds of responses come from spending time with the playbook.
Finally, we need to master the basics. In sports, the basics are called the fundamentals. They’re the basic skills needed to play the game. Whether it’s tennis, golf, or football, there are some skills every player has to master in order to have a chance to win.
The same holds true for God’s will. There are some fundamental parts of his game plan that we have to master in order to experience it. The fundamentals are made up of the clear, black-and-white commands of Scripture. They tell us explicitly what God wants us to do or not do in any situation – things like: tell the truth, be kind, and always repay evil with good. No matter how difficult the decision or dilemma may be, you can always count on the fundamentals to steer you in the right direction.
Rom. 12:1-2 – Therefore, I urge you, brothers and sisters, in view of God’s mercy, to offer your bodies as a living sacrifice, holy and pleasing to God—this is your true and proper worship. 2 Do not conform to the pattern of this world, but be transformed by the renewing of your mind. Then you will be able to test and approve what God’s will is—his good, pleasing and perfect will.
The most basic things of all in Scripture are the passages that go so far as to specifically state, “This is what God wants” or “This is God’s will.” If you want a place to start, then start with these passages.
For example, we’re told that God wants everyone to come to the point of repentance (a spiritual turnaround that results in following Jesus). So it’s probably not worth asking him to show us his will for a major decision if we’re not willing to follow his Son on a daily basis.
The Bible also tells us that it’s God’s will that every Christian be filled (controlled by) the Holy Spirit, that he wants us to be sexually pure and to avoid all forms of immorality, and that it’s his will for us to respond with respect and obedience to the authorities in our life. It’s amazing how many of us have sought God’s specific leading for some difficult decision while ignoring the fundamentals of his game plan.
Close
Most certainly, God does have a plan for all of us. But it’s a game plan with lots of freedom, not a blueprint with every detail spelled out. Our job is not so much to find something. It’s to become someone. That someone is to be a reflection of the image and character of Jesus Christ no matter what situation in which we find ourselves.
(This series freely adapted from Larry Osborne’s book:
Ten Dumb Things Smart Christians Believe)
