When attempting to figure out God’s will for your life, it’s helpful to look at who God is. Since we are created in His likeness, it follows His will for us is to look like Him. It’s why both prayer and Bible study are so essential in the life of a disciple. If you want to figure out your purpose in God’s plan, you’ve got to get to know the author of the plan. From the beginning, we see God is relational.
He created humans for us to not only worship Him but to commune with Him. God was not alone in the very beginning. Jesus was beside Him creating everything that was made (John 1:1-3). Creation didn’t happen in a vacuum, it happened through a collaboration of perfect unity.
From the start, the first thing we learn about God is He is relational. He doesn’t want you to be or act alone. There are several more things we see about God in the creation story. He and Jesus exist in perfect unity. They have the same vision, the same goal, and the same thoughts. God desires us to have a similar relationship with Him. He desires we catch His vision for the salvation of mankind. His goal has always been the redemption of humans and the restoration of all things into the perfection in which He created them. Our thoughts and actions should always be oriented towards redemption and restoration. This has been God’s will from the very beginning and so it’s His will for each of us today.
Later in Scripture, we see the results of generations of humans not operating with God’s will in mind. The world had become progressively evil, to the point God all but started over. He used the faithfulness of one man to assist in sparing a sample of all His creation. God didn’t need Noah to accomplish what He did with the flood, but He chose to interact with His creation for the purpose of its salvation. This again harkens back to the relational nature of God and should excite us beyond belief. The all-mighty, all-powerful God desires you to collaborate with Him in rolling out His plan for the world. God will use you if you are faithful to Him.
One more characteristic worth noting is God is a sending God. Throughout the Old Testament, He sent judges to lead His people, prophets to instruct them, and Kings to protect and defend them. In the New Testament, God sent His only Son to be both our redemption and restoration. Jesus, in turn, sent out His disciples to tell the world the good news of His resurrection and God’s love. God is a sending God, and we must be prepared to go when He tells us to go and to send others to go where we cannot.
God’s will for our lives is for us to be relational, collaborative, unified with God and our fellow disciples, faithful to Him, willing to go where He sends, and for us to send others on His behalf. It’s about who we are more than what we do. Your vocation doesn’t alter what is God’s will for your life. His will for your life is always the same. How it plays out is the beauty of the collaboration between you and God and manifests itself through the talents, gifts, and passions He has uniquely provided to each of His children. Now you know God’s will for your life, how will you use what has been entrusted to you to be relational, collaborative, unified, faithful, sent, and sending? This is the great adventure of knowing Jesus.