What If…
I can remember as a younger man wondering what my life would be like if I could just… There have been so many examples in my life of where I was in some ways just letting the days pass, hoping something more meaningful would present itself. Even though I finally have a sense of clarity, and feel like I can direct my energy and resources, the wondering has never stopped. Even today I think a lot about the future, what it will be like to be 40?, what it will be like to have teenagers in the house?, what it will be like to live on a small church pastor’s salary?, what it will be lie to finally have a Ph.D.?, to write a book…? Then I wonder, what in this is God’s will? How do I lock in and focus on that?
The Will of God
Today I had the opportunity to preach a sermon aimed at outlining how we can know the will of God. A point I made was that every believer should know the will of God. That is a big assertion, and one that requires a bit of unpacking, which I won’t really do here. But to summarize, while we cannot know the secret will of God, every believer can know the preceptive will of God, and this knowledge ought to be a daily guide. The preceptive will of God is based on the precepts laid out in Scripture, and they have a lot to do with the type of person we are becoming. The concept is that godly people do godly things… When we are presented with options for our life, we can get overwhelmed and feel like we really might mess this one up if we take the wrong path. What can we do? For one, we can ask ourselves whether or not this path will lead us into obedience, holiness or worship, where we glorify and enjoy God.
We can know God’s will, and it ought to be a guide for our daily lives.
This will look different in application, but in principle the truth is universal. God want’s all of us to walk in obedience, grow in holiness and worship and enjoy him. This is a simple summary of what knowing God’s will looks like, but the application for each of us as individuals requires intetnional reflection, prayer and intimacy with God’s word. God has a purpose beyond salvation for each of us, and while we sometimes just need to move in a godly direction, greater clarity can be found with intentional reflection, prayer, meditation, and biblical community. We can know God’s will, and it ought to be a guide for our daily lives.
Practical Steps
I have been thinking about practical steps that I could take to personally continue to gain clarity and focus, realizing the end of my life is coming, and I’ll never be 32 years old again. The last thing I want is to get to the end of my life, look back and see that while I was really busy, I missed the work I was built for and placed here to do in service to God. If man’s duty is obedience to God, then I want to be intentional in not missing the obedience that looks like action on purpose.
I decided to spend an hour every night reading, thinking, and praying about why God put me on this earth…
I remember reading in article last year in the Harvard Business Review essay collection On Managing Yourself that really made me think about what it looks like to seek God’s will and to have clarity in my own life. The article was written by Harvard Business School professor Clayton Christensen, and the title of the essay was “How Will You Measure Your Life?” Christensen shared his practical steps towards gaining clarity concerning God’s purpose for his life, which I found helpful and inspiring. He said,
“When I was a Rhodes scholar, I was in a very demanding academic program, trying to cram an extra year’s worth of work into my time at Oxford. I decided to spend an hour every night reading, thinking, and praying about why God put me on this earth. That was Avery challenging commitment to keep, because every hour I spent doing that, I wasn’t studying applied econometrics…but I stuck with it and ultimately figured out the purpose of my life.”
What a great example of practical action in seeking God’s will. If anyone could say they were too busy to stop and reflect, it would be a Rhodes scholar cramming an extra year of study at Oxford! What if we all took time to stop, think, and pray about where we are headed? Everyone of us is heading towards something. It can feel like walking with your eyes closed, you feel motion, but the direction is uncertain, and the very next step is all we can think about. What if we at least knew we were heading in the right direction? I think we can. I think we can have confidence in our direction, and in part that confidence can come from being intentional about the type of person we are becoming, and second, being intentional to think, pray and seek God’s guidance. I want to be intentional, and with the start of a new year, I would like to set aside a little time each week to reflect on this topic. I think it will be worth it.
I really liked the way Christensen ended his Harvard Business Review Essay, and I think it is worth ending on: “Think about the metric by which your life will be judged, and make a resolution to live every day so that in the end, your life will be judged a success.”
Rob Lewis
Christensen, Clayton M. “How Will You Measure Your Life?” in HBR’s 10 Must Reads: On Managing Yourself. Harvard Business Review Press, Boston. 2010.