I heard a Bible teacher once state that he didn’t believe there is a ‘will of God’ for every person. He said he believed the Bible teaches that as long as you stay within the bounds of Biblical teaching that God’s providence for us is that we do whatever we want and we have his blessing. He stated that in thirty years of ministry that he’d never prayed about a single ministry decision. He seemed to be doing well as he’s a well respected teacher in a prominent position of influence.
Donald Miller, one of my favorite authors and speakers, says pretty much the same thing. In his talk at Catalyst West this year and in his blog last month he stated that he believes that very few people in the Bible had a divinely specific plan for their lives and he believes the rest of us are left to our devices, within the bounds of righteousness of course.
I grew up in a religious environment where the ‘will of God’ was oftentimes viewed much the same as walking a tight rope across Niagara Falls, one wrong move and you’re in big trouble. Much effort, prayer, and fasting went into accurately discerning your next move in life that was in accordance to God’s good pleasure. If you were to even accidentally stray from this detailed blueprint for your life you would somehow remove yourself from the umbrella of God’s protection and blessing and all sorts of bad things could happen to you and your family, particularly your children. The cultic, spiritually abusive characteristics of this view are obvious to the casual observer and it’s not one I accept any longer.
However, I also have difficulty swallowing the point of view of my teacher who said it was all up to me, to chart my own course. I think there’s probably a middle ground in between these two extremes that I think is perhaps more Biblical. Some call this “God’s preferable future” for you and I.
The sense is that, like my teacher said, there are many good and acceptable options for us to choose from in life, all of which would be pleasing to God and all of which he’d give his blessing. However, there are a limited number of options that He prefers for us and probably just one ‘best’ option for our current life situation and life stage. If we are wise we would properly discern this ‘best’ option and choose it. This would incorporate then the good meat of both extremes.
I agree with Miller, there do seem to be people in Scripture that have a special, unique calling for a specific role in their context. I think of Samuel, John the Baptist, Solomon, Jesus, Moses, et al. It seems their lives were pre-destined in an almost Calvinist way and their path was clear and certain. But that doesn’t necessarily preclude the rest of us from a similar situation. Just because our roles are less prominent and less stark doesn’t mean they’re any less specific or preferred by God.
It would seem that the whole idea of spiritual gifts lends itself to the idea that God has wired us to fulfill certain roles in spiritual community. If we don’t have a specific job from God, it seems we certainly have a specific role to play in community. Eph 4 talks about the five fold ministry that are given as gifts to the church to equip the saints for ministry. It seems then that God does have a plan of some sort for each of us, otherwise spiritual gifts would be like tools in a shed that we pick according to the job we want to do at the moment. But we can’t do that, gifts are given to us to be used according to His good pleasure. We are the tools, and tools are made with a purpose in mind.
Then there is the Apostle Paul, who characterized himself as a slave to Christ. This seems a peculiar metaphor to us today in our culture that revolves around the preeminence of the individual. Perhaps even the preoccupation with a personal life plan of God reflects our focus on the individual as so many times my concern with it isn’t so much as how I can help the kingdom as much as a search for significance. It’s difficult for us to imagine the individual being subject to the will of something outside of itself; to the group or even to God really. That’s for another blog post.
But Paul said he was a slave. A slave! To his audience this was the reality of life, many of his listeners and readers were slaves. 97% of the population of the Roman Empire at the time were slaves of some sort. To them slavery was as ubiquitous as the internet or fast food to us today. It was everywhere, inescapable. In fact, the Epistle to Philemon is a letter from the Apostle to a slave owner asking him to accept back a runaway slave who was a brother in Christ now to his former master. We struggle to accept that concept today, we the protectors of human rights in history.
There were all sorts of slaves in those day ranging from temporary bond servants to outright permanent ownership, it was all considered slavery. But it was slavery nonetheless where a person’s individuality and personal rights were subject to another person. The Roman Empire was not the land of the free and home of the brave where anything was possible for the intrepid entrepreneur. It was a place where power domination over individuals and the subjection of your will to another man and to a government was the norm. And it was this subjection of personal will to another that Paul identified with when he called himself a slave of God.
But Paul isn’t the only one to refer to himself as a slave of God, so did Peter, and the writer of Jude and even Christ’s own brother James claimed to be a slave of Christ! The great men of the New Testament didn’t consider themselves themselves free agents or independent contractors in the kingdom of God plotting our own course in the world under the benevolent eye of our rich Uncle Jesus. As slaves to God they submitted themselves completely and in every way to the will of God, viewing themselves as property of the Master to be used, or not used, as the Master wished.
This doesn’t mean that in the fulfilling of our duties in the kingdom that God desires to be a micro-manager requiring consultation and approval for every move and decision. He gives us the Bible, our gifts, godly counsel, and wisdom to make righteous judgments. But I suspect that it does mean that our specific role in the kingdom is determined by the Master and it’s our duty to submit to our role as belonging to Him.
Part of our problem with slavery is our association of slavery with cruelty, death, beatings, blood, rape and other violent kinds of personal assault. I usually think of Hebrew slaves being whipped by Egyptian foremen, or “Roots”. These images are real and not to be dismissed or marginalized to any degree.
But that’s not the only picture of slavery presented in Scripture. Joseph was a slave to Potiphar and to the Pharaoh and he lived a prosperous, comfortable life. He was much more than a house slave; he was a ruler, a leader, a shrewd business man who wielded much power and garnered respect and even fear from those under him. The determinate factor in the humanity or inhumanity of slavery is the master. In Joseph’s case with the Pharaoh he had enjoyed a relationship of trust and favor with his master, and also for awhile with Potiphar.
The key to slavery as a good or bad thing really is the Master, not the absence of personal rights. New Testament readers understood this instinctively. They understood that in the dark and dangerous Roman world the relative slavery to a good master was a step up compared to the harshness of ‘freedom’, especially for women. This I think is part of the appeal of slavery to God in the minds of NT writers who described themselves as slave to God.
They understood that slavery to God, a slavish devotion to the Almighty, was the safest and best place to be in life, it was a place of privilege, honor, and favor. They understood the goodness, the mercy, the kindness, the gentleness and the love of God and knew that all things work together for good for those that love the Lord and are called according to his purpose. His purpose, not ours.
As Christians I believe we are called not just to freedom from the guilt of sin, but to slavery to a righteous and merciful Master who is working His plan in the world. As Westerners we frame the punctiliar moment of salvation in terms of “accepting the Lord Jesus Christ into our lives” when in fact we are accepting his invitation to immerse our lives into Him. It is in Him that we live and breathe and have our being. The direction of our salvation is backwards, He is not coming into us as much as we move into him.
When viewed from this perspective the Christian life is less about what can God do for me and more about what is God doing and where can I join in? It’s cliché but true, it’s not about asking God to bless us, but to find what he’s blessing and join in. That’s the mindset of a slave of God, one who views God more as El-ohim and less Jehovah Jireh.
I am in transition in my life right now, which explains why this is so important to me at this juncture in my life. For a person of imagination and initiative there are always opportunities of one sort or another. But which way to go? What should be the driving force behind the decision; what seems best or something else that perhaps isn’t as attractive or doesn’t seem to make good career sense? Macedonia seemed good to Paul but he was prevented from going. Nineveh seemed like the wrong place for Jonah. Jesus didn’t want to be tortured and murdered and Paul didn’t want to be beaten and left for dead outside Derbe; but for whatever reason it was God’s preferable future for them all. In the kingdom things aren’t always what they seem.
Because of that I have learned that I’m not as smart as I think I am. God is much smarter than me. He knows about things that are and things that are coming that I don’t know about. He knows the lusts of my heart that conspire to lure me to options of life and ministry that in the long run would be ruinous for me or worse yet, assign me to a life ‘successful’ ineffectiveness.
If I am to emulate my biblical elders I am to submit myself to God as a slave. I am to pray as Jesus prayed in Gethsemane, “Not my will by your will be done.” I am to pray as Jesus taught us to pray, “Let your heavenly will be done here on earth.”. I am to trust him and do what he says believing by faith that I can do all things through him as he strengthens me. We should use our knowledge and experience not to decide the right path but to discern it.
