Continuing from Flexibility II, and Jerry Sittser’s book ‘the Will of God as a Way of Life’:
When I was nineteen years old, my best friend, Jerry Keizer, and I decided to take the “great American road trip.” We left in early July from Grand Rapids, Michigan, to travel to a city outside of Seattle for an August wedding. We knew both the place to which we were headed and the date we had to arrive. With the destination and arrival date secure, we embarked on a great adventure, having six weeks to explore the West.
We decided to avoid freeways as much as we could. Once we reached Denver, which we reached in a dangerously short period of time, we decided to drive all the way to Seattle without using a main thoroughfare. We took back roads and slept in a tent, or in lodgings of people we met along the way. We ate at local hangouts and met local people. At the beginning of each day we never knew where we would end up at day’s end.
Once we got hopelessly lost on logging roads in a vain attempt to take a shortcut to Mount Rainier. To make matters worse, we ran out of gas. After we were rescued, the foreman of a logging camp told us that the road we intended to take no longer existed. It had been washed out ten years before, which said something about the accuracy of our map.
We took hikes that nearly killed us. On one unforgettable expedition to the bottom of the Grand Canyon of the Yellowstone, we took lots of food but forgot to pack water. We felt as if we would die of thirst before we made it out. Jerry Keizer chugged seven Cokes when we arrived back at the lodge.
But in all this adventure we never forgot our destination, which kept us on course and on schedule. Outside of that goal, we discovered that a whole lot of country lies between Grande Rapids and Seattle. We drove on more roads than we could count, we saw more scenery than we could take in, and we met more people than we could ever hope to remember. We saw the wonder of America.
God’s Revealed Will
As I have already argued, God has given us astonishing freedom in the Christian faith. If we seek first his kingdom and righteousness, which is his revealed will for our lives, then whatever choices we make concerning the future become God’s will for us. Yet only one option becomes the actual will of God—the one we choose. Only in retrospect can we see God’s point of view that there was only one way, the way we chose and the way God designed.
Basic direction in life is therefore supremely important. As my best friend and I discovered on our trip, we could travel highways or gravel roads, we could drive fast or take our time. We just had to keep heading in the right direction. Likewise in our Christian journey we can face a variety of circumstances in life, whether planned and pleasant or unplanned and miserable, and still set a course for our lives that propels us toward God. That goal is the same for everyone.
I am not suggesting that all choices are relative, as if our life choices carry about the same degree of significance as the variety of candy we buy in the grocery store. The decision to seek first God’s kingdom and His righteousness forbids setting a direction for our lives that dishonors God. That one direction precludes complacency, immorality and relativism. Yet once we have decided to seek that kingdom first and become wholly God’s, the world becomes full of possibilities. We can choose to marry or remain single, to live forever in a small town or move to Los Angeles, to become doctors or serve as teachers, to attend Harvard or take up a trade. Listen to the Apostle Paul: ‘For all things are yours, whether Paul or Apollos or Cephas or the world or life or death or the present or the future—all belong to you, and you belong to Christ, and Christ belongs to God.’1
We know about God’s will from the Bible, which contains the revealed will of God. The Bible tells us to love God with everything we have and above everything else. It commands us to love our neighbor as we love ourselves. It exhorts us to discipline ourselves in godliness, cultivate character, pursue wisdom, and live according to scriptural truth and mandates that we offer ourselves as living sacrifices to God.
Even though scripture may be clear on such matters, that clarity does not make our choices any easier. Knowing is one thing, deciding is quite another. Even with the Bible (scriptures) to guide us, it is still difficult to make decisions about the future with complete confidence and assurance. Should we accept the job offer, though it will require uprooting the family? Should we try to have a third child, though we are close to forty-two years old? The Bible (scripture) does not tell us what to do in every situation. It establishes guidelines and principles, not a long list of rules. It sets the overall direction. But we must still make particular decisions, trusting God to guide us and go with us. ~Jerry Sittlser, The Will of God as a Way of Life (Grande Rapids, Michigan 49530, 2000,2004).p.203-205
