Understanding God's Will (UGW): Intro Part 1

This is a huge series that I posted on my other blogs, but I think it's good to explore it in relation to Calvinism.  (I will intersperse this series with other posts I add.  But this series will be under the "Understanding God's Will series" label in the sidebar.)  I wrote this before I started exploring Calvinism, when I was deeply studying what God's Word says about how God operates in this world and interacts with man and answers prayer and carries out His Will, etc.  And I am so glad I deeply studied - and got a clear picture about - what the Bible says about all this (as much as we can know that) before we got our new Calvinist pastor.  Because it was knowing what the Word said, clearly and repeatedly, that helped me to recognize the errors of Calvinism from the beginning.  Had I not already deeply studied God and His interactions with man, as the Bible clearly teaches it, I may have allowed the Calvinist pastor to put his Calvinist glasses on me, influencing me to see Scripture through his eyes.  But, thank God, I had a clear, logical, sensible understanding of Scripture before he joined the church.  (I will add new notes that relate to Calvinism when it's relevant.)   

Like most Christians, I have struggled long and hard with trying to understand God’s Will.  I went through years of stress when I was seeking His Will about buying our first home.  (I wrote all about this in the "Child of Mine" posts on the other blog, my life story.)  I was terrified of missing His Will.  But after that whole time was over, I delved deeply into the Bible to learn what it says about His Will.  And it changed my view.  

 The bottom line is ... I wasted a lot of time and energy needlessly worrying that I would miss His Will.  We don’t need to worry about “missing His Will,” as long as we are abiding in Him, sensitive to Him, and living obediently.  Because if we focus on this (instead of on finding “the next step”), things will become clear as we walk with Him.

 This series here compiles what I have learned about His Will in general, the things I didn’t really know before.  And I think they are precious truths worth exploring, worth applying to our lives.  But I need to say this up front: I am no expert in “God’s Will” or in how He works or what the Bible says.  I can only tell you what I think and believe at this point in my life.  And that could change.  There could be a Bible verse that I didn’t know about that could alter my view.  God’s ways are a mystery.  And ironically, they become more mysterious the longer I walk with Him.  But this is how I understand it now. 
            
And despite the fact that I seem to have a lot of answers here, I also have my fair share of unanswered questions and doubts still.  We will always have deep, hidden doubts and fears, even as Christians.  (While I may have doubts and questions about how God acts and moves and answers prayer, I do not have any doubts about God’s existence or love.  I’ve come too far to doubt that anymore.)  It is normal to have doubts and unanswered questions.  The key is to be honest with the Lord about them and to let them drive us closer to Him.  The more we do this, the more we will grow in our confidence and faith, and the more we will learn to seek refuge in Him when other doubts spring up.     
            
Anyway, what I want to look at in this series is how we view God’s Will versus how I think the Bible portrays God’s Will.  I think there is so much confusion over this, because we have grown up with so many pat answers and assumptions about what it is and about how God works.  And I think that this is why “finding His Will” about a house was so stressful for me.  Not only were there lots of expectations, misplaced hopes, and fears, but there were also many misconceptions about what “His Will” is and how to find it.  And it wasn’t until after this whole time period that I began to see it more clearly.  If I had known then what I know now, it wouldn’t have been so painful and stressful for me.  But . . . that’s life!

[In Calvinism, everything that happens is God's Will, what He preplanned and wanted to happen and caused to happen, even things like child abuse and predestining most people to hell.  (See the Calvinist quotes on sin and God's Will and predestination/election.)  What a horrible assault on God's character, the gospel, and truth!

In contrast, I believe the Bible clearly and repeatedly gives a more complex picture of how God works than that.  Yes, there are things He "preplans" and orchestrates, such as preplanning that Jesus would come to earth to die for our sins.  But whereas Calvinism would say that God caused the people who crucified Jesus to be evil and to desire to crucify Him and that they had no chance or ability to choose otherwise because God orchestrated it all to be exactly the way it was, I believe the Bible shows us that God doesn't cause people to be evil or to sin but that He allows us to choose to be that way (and He knows ahead of time what we will choose) and then He weaves our self-chosen decisions (whether sinful or not) into His plans.  He lets us choose first, and then He works it into His plans.

(And I don't mean the Calvinist version of "self-chosen" where un-regenerated people "choose" to sin because that's the only desire that Calvi-god built into their "sin natures," and so that's all they can "choose" because they have no ability to desire to do anything else.  That's not real choice!  Having only one choice - only one door to walk through - and not having the opportunity or ability to make any other choice because God didn't give you any other options is NOT choosing or making free-will choices.  It's simply doing what Calvi-god preplanned you would do and forced you to do.  That's NOT choice!  It is Calvinist deception, trying to sound like they believe we make real choices and are truly responsible for our choices when they are really teaching the exact opposite!)

I believe the Bible gives a very different view of how God acts than Calvinism does.  In the Bible, God gives a lot of freedom to man to make decisions, to obey or disobey, and He works our choices into His plans.  But He doesn't make our choices for us.  And since God allows us to disobey, many things that He wills don't get done.  (Are all orphans and widows taken care of?)  And many things that happen do so because of our bad choices, not because God wanted it to happen or planned it to happen.

In Calvinism, God controls and orchestrates all that happens, every tiny detail, including our sins.  But in the Bible, God is over and above all, giving us freedom within boundaries, but then He takes our choices and works them into His plans or makes something good out of them.  

It's kinda like the difference between a professional chef (Calvinist) who - to make his meal work out well - has to prewrite his recipes, plan every single ingredient he's going to use, and preplan/control every step of the way and everything that everyone on his kitchen staff thinks, says, and does so that he gets the exact outcome he preplanned, with no influence or input from anyone else... and a professional chef (non-Calvinist) who allows other people to bring in ingredients of their choice and to influence the steps he takes and the way he creates the meal, and yet who is still wise enough and capable enough to work it all into something amazing.

Or maybe you'd prefer a chess example.  In that case, it's like the difference between a master chess player (Calvinist) who has to play both sides of the chess board himself, controlling every move made by both sides, in order to win... and a master chess player (non-Calvinist) who can beat any other skilled chess player who challenges him, anticipating their moves and working them to his advantage, whatever they choose.

The God of the Bible is so much more wise and complex than Calvinism gives Him credit for, being able to give us freedom to make choices and still being able to weave it all together into good, into His plans.  But the god of Calvinism can only manage the factors he alone creates and can only win if he alone controls and causes everything, meaning that if there were any tiny particle he didn't actively control, he's cease to be a sovereign, all-powerful God.]



I want to start by looking at these two examples from my life: a job that I got and the first home we rented. 
            
Just after my internship as a counselor, I was looking for a part-time job.  I could only work a handful of hours a week since I had a toddler.  And they needed to be evening hours so that I could work when my husband, Jason, was home.
            
As I interviewed for a position, the interviewer assured me that I could do almost all the work in the evening and that there would be minimal interruption during the day.  And I asked several times to make sure.  As I considered all the facts, everything sounded pretty reasonable.  All I had against it was this tiny, little nagging sense that I wasn’t running it all past God.  It was just a hint of a feeling that something wasn’t right, that I was going off in my own wisdom, and that God might actually want me to say “no,” or to at least slow down and pray and wait for guidance.  But the details all seemed right, and I couldn’t see any real reason not to take it.  And I needed the job (or I thought I did).  It was an open door, so it must be God’s Will, right? 
            
Well, it was a few weeks after I got the job that I learned that it was very disruptive to my day.  This was a crisis-management counseling position, and so I had to be there when called upon.  And I was called upon at all hours of the day, several times a week.  I had to drop everything and ask my husband to come home from work so that I could attend staff meetings with the teens in the hospitals, sometimes up to an hour away. 
            
I only made it four months before burning out and needing to find a new job.  Had I just slowed down and listened to that still, small voice (which I didn’t really recognize as the Holy Spirit at the time), I would have been spared a lot of trouble.  Thankfully, God allowed me to find a much more convenient part-time job after that, a position that opened up just as I was leaving the other one.  
            
But, you might be wondering, maybe all this was God’s Will?  Maybe He planned it all to happen that way to get me into that second position?  Maybe, but I don’t think so.  I had the sense that I was rushing ahead of God, and yet I didn’t listen.  I believe that He might have had a different plan in mind, but I missed it with my hasty choice.  He, however, took my mistake and worked it into a new plan.   
            
And another time that I made a hasty choice was in regards to the first house that we rented.  We were in an apartment out by my graduate school, but we were looking to move back home by my husband’s work.  My mom and step-dad at the time, Bob, owned some rental houses there.  And Bob called me up one day and offered to rent a house out to us.  Something inside (or Someone) said, “Wait!  Check it out first.”  But did I listen?  No!  My reasoning said, “He’s my step-father.  Of course he wouldn’t rent out something to me that wasn’t fit for us.  I’ll just have faith that God brought this because it’s for the best.”
            
Well, after we said “Yes” and made plans to move, we got to see this home.  And we were horrified.  It was disgusting and filthy.  It reeked of animal pee, the carpet was soiled, there was pot paraphernalia in the cabinets, and there were fleas and mice poop all over.  (We had to bomb it three times for fleas.  And I was eight months pregnant.)  And it was like a fun house at a carnival, with walls ever-so-slightly slanted this way and that.  And it was tiny, tiny, tiny.  It was so filthy that we had to live with my parents for a month so that it could get fixed up enough to not be a health hazard.  (Bob hadn’t really kept watch on the previous renters, so he didn’t even really know what condition it was in.)
            
And then, as house prices rose and we had a second child and I decided to stop working and we couldn’t make enough money to move up, we got stuck in that house for several very unhappy, very depressing years.  Thankfully, we eventually moved to a better place (the two-bedroom rental that later became a moldy nightmare and heartbreak), but I wonder how things might have turned out had I listened to the Spirit’s quiet nudges or took the time to pray and to wait on God.  We might have been able to bypass the whole mold-pit if we had prayed and listened to God's leading from the beginning.  But I wasn't aware at the time how God led people and carried out His Will and worked in people's lives.  But because of all the mistakes I made and all the research I did in the Word because of it, I learned over time.  And so that is the good that came out of the bad.  

 So was the path that we took God’s Will for us, His preplanned path, to get us to where we are now?  Or did we have some responsibility for what happened and where we ended up, especially since I knew that we didn’t seek God’s advice in the first place?  Is everything that happens God's Will, preplanned and caused by Him?  Or can we do things that God never willed, wanted, or caused?  

 (Intro Part 2 is coming up next.  But if you don't want to wait, you can find this whole series on another blog of mine, starting here.  But I will be updating it for this blog and adding things related to Calvinism.)  



For reference, here are all links to the posts in this series:

Introduction part 1 and part 2
1.  Our Impact On God's Will 
2.  Cause versus Allow
3.  God's Will Is A Verb
4.  Taking Our Responsibility Seriously
5.  Prayer Matters
6.  But God Can Read Minds
7.  But God Already Knows Our Needs
8.  Advice About Prayer
9a.  "Name It and Claim It" Nonsense
9b.  Help for the Journey
9c.  Considering Other Prayer Verses
9d.  Idolatrous Prayers
9e.  Unanswered Prayer
9f.  Maybe God's Not Listening
9g.  Other Convicting Verses
9h.  Summing Up Effective Prayer
9i.  Still Waiting For An Answer
10.  Why Do Bad Things Happen?
11.  Does Everything Happen For A Reason?
12.  God Works All Things For Good
13.  Limiting God's Power?
14.  Does God Cause Nations To Sin?
15.  Is God Sovereign?
16.  Can We Change God's Mind?
17.  But God Can't Change His Mind
18.  Our Responsibilities Regarding God's Will
19.  Praying For The Wrong Things
20.  Missing The Path
21.  Will God Lead Me To Where I Don't Want To Go?
22.  So What, Ultimately, Is God's Will? 


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