Navigate: #God s will. God Has a Blueprint for My Life? Week #1:

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1 Navigate: #God s will God Has a Blueprint for My Life? Week #1: When it comes time to make a major life decision, most of us experience a heightened interest in discovering God s will. When making a choice about a job opportunity, selecting a college, determining the future of a romantic relationship, or deciding where to live, we don t want to blow it so we seek God s will with extra fervor. We pray for it, and search for it. All in hopes that it will become clear what God wants us to do. Some of us look for signs, divine coincidences, and open doors that will hopefully indicate God s leading. If we were honest, most of us assume that God s will is both important and elusive. If God s will is so important, why is it so hard to find? Sometimes it feels like hunting for eggs on an Easter Hunt. Let me say from the outset, God can guide us anyway He chooses. He can speak to us in a dream, in a vision, in a burning bush, He can audibly speak, He can send angels, He can use other people, He can use circumstances, he can open doors and shut doors, and He can get very quiet. While He can direct us anyway He chooses, it doesn t mean He always uses the same methods nor is he limited by what He has used before. Let me say that one of the biggest challenges we wrestle with in seeking and determining the will of God for our lives is in the development of our models about the will of God. We try to make iron-clad systems so we can forever have in place a method for knowing God s will and here lies the problem. Over the years, one of the ways people have spoken about God s Will is the blueprint model. What is the blueprint model? It suggests that God has a highly detailed blueprint for your life that includes a specific, preordained job, career, house, spouse, car, and everything in between. As a result, we spent a lot of time looking for the exact right person; place or thing God has set-aside just for us. A blueprint contains a specific set of instructions that spell out everything in precise detail. Also, in a blueprint, you don t mess with it. As a contractor, you don t have the right to move a wall, because if you do you will have problems with the architect, builder and 1

2 inspector. To see God s will as a blueprint that you have to follow exactly you will ask very tedious and detailed questions. Should I go to this school? Who should I date? Should I park in this space or not? What happens is you exercise a lot of time and energy not wanting to mess things up and many become paralyzed for fear of making the wrong decision. The blueprint model may not be the best or only way of seeing God s will at work in our lives. Instead of a blueprint, I would like to forward the idea that God does have a plan for your life and it is best realized in the form of a game plan. 1. God has designed a game plan for your life that is set forth in general guidelines and principles and includes lots of freedom and flexibility. Let s take a football game for example. The offense begins with well-scripted plays to begin the game. However, on-the-fly adjustments are built into every play. What starts out as a post pattern turns into something else all together if the linebackers blitz or the receivers aren t open. No good quarterback throws the ball to a well-covered receiver just because that s the way the play was originally designed. Instead he tucks the ball away and heads up the field hoping to advance the ball. If plan A breaks down, he s expected to try something else to help win the game. That s the way it is in life. Look at the life of Abraham in the Book of Genesis. Abraham is called the Father of the Faithful and the founder of the Hebrew nation. God s game plan for Abraham was to get him to the promised land. There, God would make Abraham into a great nation and the number of his offspring would be like counting the stars in the sky. He and his wife Sarah would have a son Isaac who would become the child of the promise and in the lineage of Jesus Christ. If God had designed a blueprint for fulfilling these promises, would it have ended before Abram even makes it to the promise land when his father who had left Ur of the Chaldeans decided to stop short and settle in Haran? Would it have included Abraham asking Sarah to lie about their relationship not just once to the Egyptians but a second time to Abimelech, king of Gerar? Would God s blueprint include a child by Abraham and Sarah s maidservant Hagar? You see in the life of Abraham a game plan. Things outside of Abraham s control or even the serious moral lapses on behalf of Abraham and Sarah 2

3 didn t thwart God s game plan. Ultimately, the game plan worked. God was faithful and Abraham s heart was open to him and his plan. I see the power of God at work. He had a plan and Abraham had a heart for God and his plan succeeded. Some people think it takes a powerful God to make sure everything goes according to his blueprint. I say, it takes a more powerful God to work alongside of our free wills. If plan A doesn t work, there is always a plan B for those who love Him! 2. A well-executed game plan takes heart. It is not by accident that the Bible places such an emphasis on the condition of one s heart toward God. Proverbs 4:23 Above all else, guard your heart, for it is the wellspring of life. Hearing from God and following his game plan begins with a heart that belongs to God. Your ways Lord, is what I desire. I want you God. If God wants to speak and you know his leading, you won t miss it if your heart is turned toward God. Psalm 37:4 Delight yourself in the Lord and he will give you the desires of your heart. Delighting in the Lord speaks of relationship. When you walk with God, his desires become your desires. Pleasing him keeps you on the forefront of walking in his will. Are you walking with God? I am not talking about getting it right 100% of the time, but I am talking about a heart that belongs to him. Our desire is to please him. Then why would you not be in his will? If you are being disobedient that s one thing quit it but if you are not, then you are walking in the will of God. It isn t some difficult puzzle you are hoping to find the answer to the will of God is where you live right now! If Jesus wishes to move you he will make it clear and you will know. Relax! 3. Executing God s game plan requires a good working knowledge of the playbook. When it comes to the will of God, we need to think biblically. The Bible addresses many of the things we face in this life. If you are thinking about stealing, hurting someone maliciously, helping the poor, blessing widows and 3

4 orphans the Bible gives us specific helps. While it doesn t tell you whom to marry, it gives great help in how to be a great Husband or wife. While it doesn t tell you where to work, the Bible tells you how to be a faithful employee. The Bible really provides us with a tremendous amount of principles and guidelines to assist us. So reading Scripture is a powerful tool for walking in the will of God. 4. Staying in step with God s game plan is aided by regular times of prayer. James 1:5 If any of you lacks wisdom, he should ask God, who gives generously without finding fault, and it will be given to him. I love this verse for many reasons. First I live the fact that God gives us wisdom. Second, I love that God gives generously. And third, I love it that he gives wisdom without finding fault (he doesn t complain about giving it), because he simply wants to give it to us. Matthew 7:7-8 Ask and it will be given to you; seek and you will find; knock and the door will be open to you. For everyone who ask receives; he who seeks finds; and to him who knocks, the door will be opened. I truly believe that when you need God to speak, he will. But I also know that he is growing us up as well. And sometimes he is saying by his silence make a good decision. The options are open for your consideration. You want to wear a pair of red pants you are free to. You want to watch the Yankees play you are free to. You want to date a girl/guy you are free to. Choices are a good thing to learn and to handle them well is important. It is called growth. I loved it when Liz or Andy wanted my advice. I also love that they no longer need my advice on everything because they have grown up to make good decisions. This is the way it is with our Heavenly Father. He is willing and able to give us wisdom when we ask and he is thrilled when we make good decisions too. 5. When determining God s will for your life, it s good to seek Godly advice. Proverbs 12:15 The way of a fool seems right to him, but a wise man listens to advice. 4

5 Proverbs 15:22 Plans fail for lack of counsel, but with many advisers they succeed. Story Prayer 5