A few weeks ago we began looking at the will of God and that it can be distinguished into God’s secret will (by which he controls everything) and God’s revealed will (what he wants people to do). Last week we saw that knowing about God’s secret will gives us peace of mind because it means he is in control of all things for our good. This week I want to look at another way that God’s secret will gives us peace.
Christians often spend a large amount of time trying to discern God’s will for them. They do this because they fear making a wrong decision which would somehow ruin God’s plan for them. For example, if they choose the wrong career, they worry that their whole life will be ruined and every good thing that God had intended for them with that career will be lost.
But the reality is that you cannot break God’s secret will for your life. In Romans, Paul asks the rhetorical question ‘For who resists his will?’ (Romans 9:19). Paul understands the answer is obvious: no-one. Job also says ‘If he snatches away, who can stop him? Who can say to him, ‘What are you doing?’ (Job 9:12). What God desires to do, he does. No one can get in the way of his plan and stop him.
This means that knowing about the secret will of God gives you tremendous peace of mind whenever you are confronted with a big decision. For example, whichever career you choose will be precisely the one God planned for you. If God didn’t plan for you to do that job, then he would stop you.
Now you do have a responsibility to be careful that you are not doing something that is completely against God’s revealed will (which we will be looking at in future articles). For example, God has revealed that Christians should not choose to be professional thieves.
But in whatever decisions you make, you can take some peace of mind that whatever you end up choosing, that is God’s will for you. You can’t ruin his will for you by making a wrong decision. And even if the decision you make isn’t a particularly good one or flat out wrong (e.g. you backslide and do end up a professional thief for a period of time), remember that God will make it work for your good if you truly love him.
Do you fear breaking God’s will? Or do you rest in the confidence that his plans for you will never fail?
Joel Radford.
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