One of the "Christian terms" some believers use the most carelessly, without prayer or much discernment, is "God's will." Some even use it as a means to comfort others when someone else has done some horrible thing. "It was God's will" - as if God approves of us doing sinful and destructive things to hurt others and ourselves. When a woman discovers her husband to be unfaithful, there are some who would say, "It was God's will." No, it wasn't God's will that the woman's husband spit on their marriage.
I was doing some research on mass murderers for a YouTube video I recorded about the gun control debate. I read about James Oliver Huberty, who in 1984 killed twenty-one people at a McDonald's in San Ysidro, California. When Huberty was a child, his mother claimed she had received a "calling" from God to leave her family and become a sort of street preacher. The abandonment by his mother devastated Huberty, and he spent his childhood - most of his entire life - sullen, angry, and in pain.
I've often said: in His grace, God often won't punish us for our sins - but we sure make each other pay for them.
God can call us to do some very seemingly crazy things. He called the prophet Hosea to marry a prostitute, as a message to disobedient Israel, who had repeatedly turned away from God, who remained loyal.
God called another great prophet, Jeremiah, to wear a yoke around his neck as a sign to Judah, whose apostasy would lead to their destruction by the Babylonians, and who scoffed at the idea of wearing the "yoke" of Babylon for their own good, denying that Jerusalem could be taken by any foreign nation.
God called the apostles to proclaim the Gospel of His Son Jesus Christ in decadent Rome, telling them beforehand that they would be persecuted and killed for doing so.
God can, and will, call us to do some daunting, weird, and frightening things. But He will never call us to sin.
James Huberty's mother's calling to preach may have been from God, but it was not His will that she abandon her son, leaving him to become a bitter loner. God does not contradict Himself, and being perfect, He cannot - He is so pure and good that He is incapable of it. Though we often wait for God, who sometimes remains silent for a season, as we wonder what He wants us to do, what His will for us is, though we often go days or years without answers, we can be sure that He will never call us to do wrong, to do that which is of the devil, who only seeks to "steal, kill, and destroy."
We can be sure God's will includes abundant love and mercy, that His will calls us to show such things, love and mercy so alien to our natural, fleshly state. We can be sure God's will includes sacrifice, for the sake of spreading the Gospel, for the sake of blessing others. We can be sure God's will includes His goodness shining through us, so that we may be a light to the world.
So, while sometimes we feel "in the dark" about God's will, we can be sure it has no association with the works of darkness, and that His light casts every shadow from among those who believe and diligently seek Him.
OHMS,
Cpt. Bud Sturguess
"In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God. He was in the beginning with God. All things were made through Him, and without Him nothing was made that was made. In Him was life, and the life was the light of men. And the light shines in the darkness, and the darkness did not comprehend it." -John 1:1-5
I've often said: in His grace, God often won't punish us for our sins - but we sure make each other pay for them.
God can call us to do some very seemingly crazy things. He called the prophet Hosea to marry a prostitute, as a message to disobedient Israel, who had repeatedly turned away from God, who remained loyal.
God called another great prophet, Jeremiah, to wear a yoke around his neck as a sign to Judah, whose apostasy would lead to their destruction by the Babylonians, and who scoffed at the idea of wearing the "yoke" of Babylon for their own good, denying that Jerusalem could be taken by any foreign nation.
God called the apostles to proclaim the Gospel of His Son Jesus Christ in decadent Rome, telling them beforehand that they would be persecuted and killed for doing so.
God can, and will, call us to do some daunting, weird, and frightening things. But He will never call us to sin.
James Huberty's mother's calling to preach may have been from God, but it was not His will that she abandon her son, leaving him to become a bitter loner. God does not contradict Himself, and being perfect, He cannot - He is so pure and good that He is incapable of it. Though we often wait for God, who sometimes remains silent for a season, as we wonder what He wants us to do, what His will for us is, though we often go days or years without answers, we can be sure that He will never call us to do wrong, to do that which is of the devil, who only seeks to "steal, kill, and destroy."
We can be sure God's will includes abundant love and mercy, that His will calls us to show such things, love and mercy so alien to our natural, fleshly state. We can be sure God's will includes sacrifice, for the sake of spreading the Gospel, for the sake of blessing others. We can be sure God's will includes His goodness shining through us, so that we may be a light to the world.
So, while sometimes we feel "in the dark" about God's will, we can be sure it has no association with the works of darkness, and that His light casts every shadow from among those who believe and diligently seek Him.
OHMS,
Cpt. Bud Sturguess
"In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God. He was in the beginning with God. All things were made through Him, and without Him nothing was made that was made. In Him was life, and the life was the light of men. And the light shines in the darkness, and the darkness did not comprehend it." -John 1:1-5
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