In a book titled “the Will of God as a Way of Life,” author Jerry Sittser wrote:
“As I struggled with the issue of discovering God’s will, I came to a startling conclusion. The will of God concerns the present more than the future; it deals with our motives as well as our actions; it focuses on the little decisions we make every day even more than the big decisions we make about the future. The only time we really have both to know and to do God’s will is the present moment. We are to love God with all our heart, soul, mind and strength, and we are to love our neighbor as ourselves. These are the basic responsibilities Jesus challenges us to pay attention to, just as a basketball coach emphasizes the fundamentals of dribbling, passing, and shooting.
Jesus’ teaching about the simple will of God is therefore always relevant in every situation imaginable, whether we are doctors or ministers, single or married, young or old, healthy or sick. It is the daily choices we make to love and serve God that determine whether we are doing the will of God. We already know the will of God for our daily lives, however cloudy the future appears to be. That we do not know what God wants for tomorrow does not excuse us from doing his will today.
This perspective on the will of God gives us astonishing freedom. If we seek first God’s kingdom and righteousness, which is the will of God for our lives, then whatever choices we make concerning the future become the will of God for our lives. There are many pathways we could follow, many options we could pursue. As long as we are seeking God, all of them can be God’s will for our lives, although only one—the path we choose—actually becomes his will.
God does have one will for our lives—that we seek first his kingdom. But God allows us to follow many possible pathways to live that will out. For example, God does not have one person selected for us to marry whom we must “find.” Instead, there are many people we could marry, if we choose to marry at all. Nor does God have one career mapped out for us, which we must then figure out. Instead there are many careers we could do and perhaps will do. The “one” will God has for us consists of commitment to put him first in everything. Then, when we make specific decisions concerning the future, we can be confident that what we choose becomes God’s will for our lives. (continued. . . . ‘All is Vanity’)
~ Jerry Sittser, the Will of God as a Way of Life (Zondervan, Grand Rapids, Michigan, 2000,2004) p.34-35
(Posts with a preamble asterisk * are for a more general audience, and not specific to teachings of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints.)
