I suspect we’ve all heard it before. It comes straight out of the 4 Spiritual Laws from Campus Crusade for Christ, “God loves you and has a wonderful plan for your life.” But is that true? Not the love part rather the “plan for your life” part.
There seems to be little support in scripture that I recall which supports the idea of a personal plan for individual lives. Perhaps it comes from God knowing the hairs on our head, or His words from Jeremiah, “For I know the plans I have for you…” (29:11) Although that passage is directed toward Israel and not toward individuals.
Maybe the best way to look at this concept is that God has a universal plan for mankind and there is a role we play in that plan as individuals.
As we move into the New Year, it is important that we be aware of God’s will for Christians. That we be sensitive to the needs of others, and that we be conscious of our own personal health and well being. If that translates to a personal will for our lives, than so be it, however it is not individually dictated by God. It is simply living a responsible life in light of scripture and our interaction with other people.
I believe most of us are sensitive to being within the “will of God”. Nevertheless, we might want to keep it in perspective and understand that when it comes to a personal plan for our lives, if there were one, it would be found in the Sermon on the Mount. Were we all to flesh those instructions out with commitment and consistency everyone would live a better life.
Happy New Year!
Exactly right. I think, to be frank, that people can get silly and glib around the notion that every little detail of their lives is part of God’s specific and special intervention. These same folks find they have a lot to contend with when that drunk driver crosses the center line, they become seriously disabled or ill, etc. Because if God’s the one who gives you a raise, a good deal on a house, etc., then God’s also the one who decides to sock it to you.
Personally, I don’t think “the will of God” refers to divine micromanaging of the stuff that’s been put in our hands as individuals and as a society.
Paul,
Thanks for your comment. Since it “rains on the just and the unjust”, defining specific events in our lives as part of God’s will is difficult.
You comment about micromanaging is central to the issue. It implies the role we all have as stewards of what God has entrusted to us. A role that many people forget or assume to be divinely dictated rather than their accepting personal responsibility to flesh it out.
Have a Happy New Year.