Brad Alles

Let’s continue to examine God’s will for your life with this second edition.  God’s guidance comes to us in four ways: sovereign, special, moral, and non-moral.  In the last blog, we saw how God guides us in a sovereign way. That means that God is in total control, or is sovereign, and that unless something is His will, it will not occur.  In this second installment, let’s understand how God guides certain people in special ways.

In the Bible, there are individuals whom God taps on the shoulder, telling them specifically what to do with their life.  Whether it is Noah (build an ark), Jonah (go to Nineveh), or Paul (go to the Gentiles and preach Christ crucified), certain people are told exactly what to do with their life.  If you take some time and brainstorm, you can list quite a few.

Yet here’s the problem: special guidance does not come to all people.  Read the Bible from cover to cover and you’ll find very few people are told exactly what to do.  All of the people in the Bible  are given moral guidance (the next blog topic), but few are given special guidance.  Only a select few are told details on God’s will for their life.  They re the exception, not the rule.

Does that mean that those few are better spiritually, or more loved by God?  No; it simply means that they were given specific direction for their life, while the rest of us are free to choose within God’s moral will the course of our life.  While this may seem like we don’t matter to God, it is not that.  Instead, we are simply given great freedom to choose!

Remember that all of us are to carry out the “Cultural Commission” of Genesis 1:28. God told Adam and Eve, “‘Be fruitful and increase in number; fill the earth and subdue it.’” In other words, we should get married, have children, build communities, and create culture.  If God has not spoken to you in a burning bush, telling you to go to Egypt and free His people from slavery there (God’s special will for Moses in Exodus 3), then you are free to choose your path.  Whether it is being a business person, educator, construction worker, minister, or homemaker, you are free to choose what you desire, as long as it doesn’t violate God’s moral will.  More on that next time.