The Frantic Search for God’s Will

It is 8:00 a.m. on a Monday morning, and an all-too-familiar scene is playing out at my house. It’s time for me to get in the car and head to work, but I have lost my keys. A frantic search ensues. My older son grabs the flashlight and checks under the couch. My younger son wanders around the backyard. I investigate the bathroom, then the kitchen, then inside the fridge (you never know). As the moments slip by, I begin losing hope that I’ll ever make it to work. And then, just as I’m about to start in on the sock drawer, my wife appears and asks me in a gracious tone, “Hey, babe. Have you checked your pockets?” I place my hand into my right pocket and hear a strange, metallic jingling. I have found my keys. They were in my pocket the whole time.

For many Christians, the search for God’s will can feel very similar to the scene I just described. You have a good desire to know God’s will and follow it in your life. But, if you’re being honest, you really don’t know how to find it. And so, the frantic search ensues. You ask God to give you a sign. You pray he’ll speak to you in an audible voice. But the sign never appears. The voice never rings out. And you are left wondering, “Will I ever find God’s will? Will I ever know what he wants me to do?”

The solution to this problem is simpler than you might think. In fact, you already have everything you need to find God’s will for your life and never wonder about it again. You just need to know where to look. The place to find God’s will isn’t in mystical signs or audible voices. The place to find God’s will is in the Bible. The answer has been in your hands the whole time.

Here are three surprisingly simple biblical steps you can take to find God’s will for your life:[1]

Step #1: Search God’s Word in Scripture

The Bible is sufficient. It equips us with everything we need for life and godliness (2 Peter 1:3). This means that the Bible provides us everything we need to find and follow God’s will.

The Bible does this by telling us God’s will for our lives. Here are a couple of examples:[2]

The Bible tells us it is God’s will to sanctify us: “For this is the will of God, your sanctification: that you abstain from sexual immorality” (1 Thessalonians 4:3).

The Bible tells us it is God’s will to satisfy us: “Rejoice always, pray without ceasing, give thanks in all circumstances; for this is the will of God in Christ Jesus for you” (1 Thessalonians 5:16-18). Paul’s point here is that God wants us to be so satisfied in Christ that our lives are filled with joy in the Lord, active dependence on the Lord in prayer, and constant thanksgiving to the Lord in every circumstance.

Passages like these give us a clear way to assess whether we are following God’s will for our lives.

Are you repenting of sin and growing in Christlikeness? Are you regularly rejoicing in all the spiritual blessings that God gives you in Christ? If so, then you are following God’s will!

Step #2: Gain God’s Ear in Prayer

There is only one person in all of history who perfectly followed God’s will for his whole life, and his name is Jesus Christ. And yet, when we read about the life of Christ in the Gospels, we find something striking. Jesus Christ, the Son of God, regularly and habitually sought the will of his Father through prayer.

Oftentimes, before a significant moment in his ministry, we see Jesus praying. Before he chooses his disciples, he goes up a mountain alone and prays (Luke 6:12-15). Before he raises Lazarus, he prays (John 11:41-44). Before he goes to the Cross, he spends all night in the Garden of Gethsemane praying, “Your will be done” (Matthew 26:36-46).

Not only does Jesus provide the perfect example of seeking God’s will through prayer, but the rest of the New Testament commands us to pray in this way.

Jesus himself commands us to ask God to accomplish his will in our lives: “Pray then like this: ‘Our Father in heaven, hallowed be your name. Your kingdom come, your will be done, on earth as it is in heaven’” (Matthew 6:9-10).

James commands us to ask God for wisdom: “If any of you lacks wisdom, let him ask God, who gives generously to all without reproach, and it will be given him” (James 1:5).

What these passages show us is that prayer is not about gaining revelation from God but rather about expressing dependence on God. God reveals his perfect will to us in his Word, and through prayer we express our submission to and dependence on him.

Step #3: Ask God’s People for Counsel

Even after we have discovered God’s will in his Word and expressed our submission to God’s will in prayer, we will sometimes have trouble living out God’s will in our lives.

Sometimes the issue will be that we don’t want to follow God’s will, and we will need to repent.

But in other instances, the problem will be that the decision we are seeking God’s will about is complex. Questions like “Should I commit my life to global missions?” or “Should I move my family for this new job opportunity?” require great wisdom to answer.

We certainly gain this wisdom from God, but oftentimes God uses other brothers and sisters in Christ to help and counsel us.

It can be easy to assume that asking other Christians for counsel means that you are less spiritually mature.

But the Bible tells us the opposite: “The way of a fool is right in his own eyes, but a wise man listens to advice” (Proverbs 12:15).

When you are having trouble discerning whether a particular decision or path in life lines up with God’s will, you are a fool if you try to figure it all out on your own and you are wise if you seek and listen to advice from other believers.

This leads to a very simple and practical step you should take when you are seeking God’s will. You should ask the question, “What godly people can I talk to about this?”

God has placed Christian brothers and sisters in your life who have the Spirit of God and wisdom from God. If you aren’t willing to ask them for help, you are missing out on one of the primary ways that God helps us to find and follow his will for our lives.

The Path to God’s Will

When I lose my keys at my house, one of my problems is that I often look in all the wrong places (under the couch, in the refrigerator, etc.) before I look in the most obvious place (my pocket).

Many of us can face the same problem when searching for God’s will. But when we open the Bible, the path to God’s will becomes abundantly clear. It consists of three steps: search God’s Word in Scripture, gain God’s ear in prayer, ask God’s people for counsel.

When you take those simple steps, you’ll find yourself firmly on the path to God’s will for your life.

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[1]These steps have been modified from Kevin DeYoung’s Just Do Something: A Liberating Approach to Finding God’s Will

[2]These examples were drawn from John MacArthur’s Found: God’s Will