What the Bible Says: The Blessing of God’s WillSample

Blessing #4: We can challenge immature or unwise decisions of loved ones—and be open to having our own decisions challenged.

This gets to the heart of the matter. If God does have an individual will for me, then who decides what His individual will is? I do. And I get to frame my choices with the indisputable claim, “This is God’s will.” With that pronouncement, how can I give permission to wise people in my life to question what I have called “God’s will”? Putting my decisions in the “God’s will” category removes them from objection. The problem is that when you give anyone, yourself or someone else, a way to make unchallengeable decisions, it will lead to chaos and eventual isolation in your life. 

When I was in college, I knew a young, immature, perfectly typical couple who fell madly in love. By the end of first semester, they announced, “We’re getting married in a month!” Many of their Christian friends replied, “Why? Are you sure this is God’s will?” And they confidently asserted, “We’ve prayed about it a lot, and we know it’s God’s will.”

Under the traditional view of God’s individual will, we were all supposed to say, “Wow, they’ve prayed about it and discovered that God’s will for them violates common sense. How dare we attempt to warn or caution them?” By couching their choice as God’s will, they communicated, “Do you have a problem with God’s will? Who are you to question God? We’re getting married. If you have any complaints, take them up with God.” Claiming God’s will is like the ace card that trumps all argument, “Well, I can’t contradict God,” we’re supposed to say, “So I had better let you drive off a cliff.”

Most sane people (particularly parents) would agree that in general, it is not a wise idea for a young couple to meet, fall in love, and get married in a three-month span. Of course there’s the exception, that rare and special couple who got married after knowing each other thirteen days and just celebrated their sixtieth anniversary. To them we can all say, “Congratulations, and let’s write ‘grace’ all over that and be grateful!” Despite the rare exceptions, in general, a rushed marriage is not a wise plan, and God is never honored when we blame our lack of wisdom.

When others try to back us off and thus distance themselves from wise counsel or accountability with the “God’s will” defense, we don’t have to be silenced. We can calmly, compassionately say, “What I see in this choice is mostly your will. You’re the one making the decision, and I’d like you to consider that God would never lead you to choose an action that contradicts the wisdom of His Word and His people.” If a decision is truly God’s will then we cannot question it, but if we see most decisions as expressions of human will (no matter what the deciders try to call them), then we have an opportunity to approach them in love and express a biblical alternative for a potentially wiser choice. Walking in wisdom and helping others to do the same is truly the will of God according to the Word of God.