This question makes three presuppositions:
“¢ there really is a being called God;
“¢ God wills good things for us;
“¢ we can know what this will is.
Without the knowledge of God’s will it is difficult, if not impossible, to run a church successfully or powerfully. We may have the best administrative principles in place, be purpose-driven, have excellent preaching and full parking lots, but without knowing God’s will and doing it, we will always have less than the full church of Christ.
Biblical passages encourage us to seek God’s will in all of our activities. Jesus commands us in the Lord’s Prayer, for example, to know that the God we trust is truly a loving parent “Our Father.” He urges us to expect good things (“give us our daily bread”). And he teaches us to ask that God’s will be done daily, in heaven and on earth.
In Acts 16:6-7, we see an example of how such a search for God’s will works out in practice. Paul and his companions are trying to ascertain where to go next on their mission journeys. They want to travel to Asia (modern Iraq) but are forbidden by the Holy Spirit. They try to go to Bithynia (northern Turkey) but Jesus will not allow them. Not until Paul has a dream and hears a man from Macedonia asking for help do the missionaries know where to go next.
How do things like that happen? How did the church leaders know that the Spirit prevented one trip, that Jesus would not permit another, or that the message in the dream was authentic? How do we ascertain what God wants for the church today?
One way is through corporate and private prayer. Our requests do not need to be complex or formal to receive an answer. “Dear God, we are perplexed about how to make our church grow. Please tell us how to proceed.” “Dear God, there is a great deal of conflict in our congregation. Can you teach us how to love each other more?” “Lord, we have a burden for those who are suffering under oppression and for those who are dying under terrorism. What can we do to make the world better?”
We all know that prayer is important but we might wonder how we recognize God’s answer when we have received it. How did Paul know that he should not go to Baghdad but that Greece was just right?
Ephesians 3:16 indicates that the will of God is primarily revealed to us through the “inner being”, what is sometimes called the “interior person”,or “the inward illumination of the Spirit.” We have a spirit within us that is directly connected to God. It is a built-in receptor that communicates with the will of God. God made us that way and it is nothing we create for ourselves. The church has no choice whether to have it or not; it can only decide, like using a computer or Internet service, whether to turn it on or leave it off.
Jeremiah illustrates how this inner spirit responds to God’s signals (Jeremiah 20:9). “If I say, ‘I will not mention God, or speak any more in God’s name,’ then within me there is something like a burning fire shut up in my bones; I am weary of holding it in, and I cannot.“ More positively, it is often a powerful feeling of peace that something is absolutely right, that is must and can be done, we are at peace with it. The Christian identifies that experience with the knowledge of the will of God. How often does your session, your Board of Deacons, or the Board of Trustees take your most vexing problems to God in prayer and wait quietly until you receive the answer you need?
Another way to find God’s will is to recall the overall nature of God’s will as a whole. It is not doubletalk to seek for God’s will in the way God wills things. As Christians who know Jesus and read God’s word, we know more about what God wants than we may at first think.
We are ordered to follow in Jesus’ footsteps. If we are about to do something that will put us out of step, we had better reconsider. We know that God is truth and love. If what we are about to do is crooked, dishonest, if it cheats or hurts other churches or society at large, we had better reconsider. We know that Jesus ordered his followers to love their enemies and avoid violence. If what we are about to do is violent, physically or verbally, we had better take a different tack. If we think we are asked by God to intimidate someone or harm them in any way, such an action cannot be God’s will in Christ.
Asking basic questions will aim the congregation in the right direction. Is what we are about to do in concert with basic principles of honesty, love, and justice? Will it hurt or help? Will it give honor to the person of Jesus and the whole Body of Christ? Does it obey the Ten Commandments? Does it respect Jesus’ command for justice for all people, especially the poor and oppressed? Are we pursuing a course of action for God’s sake or only for our own selfish purposes?
We never know what may be around the corner in our churches or in our private lives. We cannot anticipate the circumstances we may encounter or what decisions God may demand of us in the near future. Today is the day to start practicing communication with God so we can really know what God wants for us at any time. As Paul wrote to the church in Colossae, “… we have not ceased praying for you and asking that you may be filled with the knowledge of God’s will in all spiritual wisdom and understanding, so that you may lead lives worthy of the Lord… as you bear fruit in every good work and as you grow in the knowledge of God.
Earl S. Johnson Jr. is the pastor of First Church, Johnstown, N.Y. and Adjunct Professor of Religious Studies at Siena College.
