---

Russ Johnston has for years served in training programs of The Navigators and other Christian organizations. He notes that at conferences where the afternoons are devoted to workshops on various topics, half of those attending will sign up for the one on “knowing the will of God,” even though there are 20 other choices.

Those who truly love God desire to do what He wants. They aim “ . . .to serve him with a perfect heart and with a willing mind . . .” (1 Chr. 28:98). We all want to know God’s will, realizing that our ultimate well-being lies in conformity to it.

But how is it possible to know what our heavenly Father would have us do? Scripture provides guidelines for many general types of actions but makes no mention of our individual decisions and circumstances. It does not tell us whether to marry William or Floyd, whether to take the job with Exxon or to engage in further studies, whether to move back to Ohio or to stay and look for work in Boston.

The earnest longing to do what God would have us do creates serious problems for many Christians. That is why books, courses and seminars on the will of God remain among the most popular offerings within the Church.

But those who have repeatedly taken instruction on this subject often do not feel they have come to grips with knowing the will of God. They remain indecisive about the different courses of action and are not sure if they really know how to receive God’s guidance.

The available instruction in large part has not succeeded in making divine guidance a viable part of the average Christian’s walk with God.

There are several reasons for this. Certain pitfalls in the standard approach must be avoided if we are to find our way into a divinely-guided life.

One viewpoint that will certainly prevent us from finding divine guidance is to see it as primarily a resource that we can use to solve our problems.

Perhaps we have a decision to make, and we realize that it has great importance for our future life. For example, we have an opportunity to spend six months with a mission program or we can become part-owner of an apartment complex. We then look for God’s guidance as a means for solving our problems of making the right decision.

This way of looking at guidance is especially attractive when we believe that following dos’ will guarantees a trouble-free road through life and seek it for that reason. However, there is nothing at all in the life of our Saviour or in the experience of His followers to suggest that obedience to God’s will spares us from the injustices and the dangers of life. In fact, it may bring great trials.

God’s guidance, then, is not something that we will keep “on hand” like a compass, thus guaranteeing a calm sea and a prosperous voyage through life. It cannot be turned on and off when we think we need it, like a water faucet.

To think of God and of our relationship with Him in these terms reduces our faith to idolatry; where God exists for our use. It is little wonder that He rarely cooperates with such an approach and leaves those who follow it constantly trying “to get a handle on” guidance.

We need guidance as much—and probably more—when we think we know what to do as when we don’t. What we need is not guidance “on tap” but a constant, personal fellowship with Christ, who may provide assistance in making specific decisions but is concerned with much more.

A second common hindrance to receiving divine guidance is the idea that, when it is given, it will be given as wisdom teeth are: automatically and without our having to learn how to receive it.

Acquiring guidance is an interactive process with a personal God. It is something into which we enter and learn how to sustain only through a course of thoughtful, grace-spangled experience.

True, God does occasionally impose unlearned guidance upon His children. But if we would grow in the spiritual life, we must attend to what He chooses to do a rule and not bewilder ourselves with all of the possibilities. It is possible that Jesus will guide you as He did Paul on the road to Damascus, but those who wait for Him to impose such guidance normally receive nothing at all.

Our abilities come through a process of learning that usually involves a good deal of error, struggle, disappointment and pain. This is also true of learning how to regularly receive guidance on the will of God.

Just as most Christians never attain much competence in prayer because they do not set themselves to learn how to pray, so few attain competence in receiving God’s guidance because they do not learn how to receive it.

A third cause of difficulty is the view that God’s guidance will be something overwhelming and irresistible. “If I cannot attend seminary this fall,” one may say, ”then God intends that I not enter the ministry.” Or: “If Jill and I find work in the same city; God wills us to get married.”

To be guided by God, it is often thought, will turn us into infallible automations, with no use whatsoever for our own thought processes, perceptions and judgments.

This view of guidance is graphically expressed by a song that I have heard on several radio programs. In it, Jesus is asked to “drop-kick” the composer “through the goal posts of life.”

There surely is room in the spiritual life for something like being hurled into God’s will. Perhaps we see it in Jonah’s attempt to avoid God’s explicit directives to him and in God’s persistence in bringing him to obedience. But, to say the least, the method of spiritual drop-kicking was God’s second choice in Jonah’s case, and that is usually so with us, too.  We cannot count on being regularly hurled into the will of God.

Surveying these misconceptions about divine guidance, one senses that they are rooted in deeper misunderstandings of God and of life in Christ. The ideal for guidance is finally determined by who God is and who we are and what a personal relationship between God and ourselves should be.

Failure to deal successfully with divine guidance has its root in failure to understand, accept and grow into a conversational relationship with God, the sort of relationship suited to friends (John 15:15) who are mature personalities in a shared enterprise (1 cor. 3:9), no matter how different they may be in other respects.

It is within such a relationship that our Lord intends us to recognize His voice speaking in our hearts. He has made ample provision for this in order to fulfill His mission as the Good Shepherd: To bring us life, and life more abundantly.

The abundance of life comes in following Him. We must hear and recognize His voice. “ . . . The sheep follow him: for they know his voice” (John 10:4).

So we cannot have God’s guidance without understanding and accepting a full life with Christ. We will usually fail if we seek guidance foremost or alone.

Once we are clear on this central point, we can turn our attention to learning to hear His voice.

(Next month, Dr. Willard will discuss what a Christian needs to do to enter into divine guidance.)