Teach me to do Your will, for You are my God. May Your gracious Spirit lead me on level ground - Psalm 143:10
God’s will is something that hard to nail down. It has been said of any number of things, that it must be God’s will, but I think it is import to understand that not everything we do, even the good stuff, is in the will of our Heavenly Father. Sometimes, we simply do the things that we think we should, or we do the things even though we know we shouldn’t. We live each day of life “trying to do what is right,” yet never succeeding. Why is it that even when things are going well, we can still have feelings that something is missing, or something just isn’t right?
Perhaps, we need to understand better the will of God, and how it works in our lives. The Father’s will is for us to live in obedience to Him, but when we don’t know what to do, we feel that we have to do something, so we continue on with our lives, and the first few things we do (especially when we’re doing them “for” God) feel really good.
We feel like we are making an impression on others, and in our hearts we think we are doing what is right, but soon, we keep doing those same things, and they don’t mean as much. Why did the feelings of accomplishment and good stop? The answer may be one of two things.
First, the answer is that we never were doing the God’s will, but simply what we felt like we should do as a Christian person. Our life is not bad, and does much for others because we think we should. This does not take away from the fact we have a relationship with God, but it does limit our relationship with God. Even when we are doing what we think we should, we might be limiting God. We might be limiting what God could do through us. We put God in a box that only encompasses our comfort zone, and we never feel fulfillment because we are not allowing the power of the Holy Spirit to truly work through us.
The second answer follows the first. God may have moved on and we have not. What I mean by this is what can be seen in many places within the Scriptures, and it has to do with the seasons of life. We may have been called to work in a particular area or in a particular ministry for a season, when our season is over we need to be open to where God is calling us next. God may be calling us to new places in our faith, and if we keep doing the same things, expecting the same feeling they may not be there.
The greater problem we fall into is that being obedient to God’s will, calls us give up that free will we so often covet. Being free, we have to choose to listen and allow God to move us and direct us as necessary to accomplish His will on earth; thus we pray, “your (God’s) kingdom come, your (God’s) will be done…” In a world in which we really have no control, we need to learn to relinquish control of our lives over to God. Then we can see where the Spirit may be leading. May God help us re-learn how to pray, and may we seek God to teach us obedience that we may live in His most powerful will, and walk the road to a fulfilling life always in his presence.
Grace & Peace,
Sam