How to Know God's Will for Your LifeSample

Leap before you look

My brother Ken is a passionate and dramatic preacher. One day he chose to speak on the topic Leap before you look! He thought this rephrasing of an old proverb was catchy. The topic was to be highlighted in our church’s regular advertisement in a prime position in our city’s weekend newspaper. The copy editor evidently thought Ken had made a mistake and the advertisement was printed as. ‘Look before you leap!’ I still remember how furious Ken was when he opened the paper that Saturday morning.

Ken had a right to be aggrieved because the editor had missed a vital biblical and life principle.

Here’s why. Following Jesus is a matter of faith. Very often it requires us to do an apparently foolish thing. To leap first and to look afterwards. We see this time and time again in the stories of Jesus. He tells the disciples to start handing out enough food for thousands when they barely have enough for one. To throw in the fishing net where it is obvious there are no fish. To fill jars with water and to offer it as wine. To tell a lame man to walk when he hasn’t walked before. To move a tombstone so a dead man can walk out.

The same principle applies to doing the will of God. We are tempted to say to God, ‘Show me your will and then I will decide if I will do it.’ God says, ‘Tell me you will do it and then I will show you what it is.’

In a rarely quoted statement made by Jesus, he says just this: ‘If anyone’s will is to do God’s will, he will know whether the teaching is from God or whether I am speaking on my own authority’ (John 7:17). In other words, it is only as we do God’s will that we know it is his will. This sounds like a rather circular argument, but that’s how it is. The knowing comes through the doing.

Love is rather like that. You decide to love; you confess your love; and next thing you are acting your love. Love thrives on that ongoing confessing and doing. We can never understand the true nature of love until we start loving. It’s a leap of faith.

So discovering God’s will begins with saying, ‘I will do your will, Father, whatever it is.’

Which is exactly what Jesus did himself. The Bible says of him: ‘Behold, I have come to do your will, O God’ (Hebrews 10:7). That involved giving his life to be the Saviour of the world.

Doing the will of God is a step—often a leap—of faith. It takes courage and daring. And it is only in the doing of it that we come to really know it.

What Next?

·Why is it hard to say, ‘Father, I will do your will, no matter what it is.’ Why does it need faith? Record your answer to each question.

·Memorise Hebrews 10:7a (that is, the first half of the verse.) Revise the previous memory verses.