WHAT?

Life is full of questions. Whenever we ask a question beginning with “What?” we’re really looking for information. If you look up the word ‘what’ in the dictionary, you will find it is defined as “a word used to request information.” But if you think about it, it seems that we shouldn’t have that many ”what” questions because we’ve never lived in an age with as much information as we have today. We are overwhelmed by information.

There is more information in one daily addition of the Chicago Tribune than a 17th century person would have come across in a lifetime. There has been more information produced in the last five years than has been produced in the past five thousand years leading up to it. We have information like we’ve never had before, so why do we still have so many questions? Maybe we need something more than information.

Usually when we are asking an informational ‘what’ question, we’re asking things like -- ‘What is the answer for my life specifically - right now -- what I’m going thru - the decision I’m trying to make -
What university should I go to?
What vocations should I choose?
What job should I put in for?
What is the name of the person I should marry?
What is my future going to look like with my family?
What is my wife’s real hair color (just seeing if you were paying attention)?
What is Your will for my life?
Our ‘What?’ questions so often center on God’s will for us.

There is the will of God that has already been revealed in Scripture. There are all kinds of areas of life where we say, “God, what do You want?” and God says, “Here’s what I want,” and it’s right in the Bible.

"What if we start praying and it turns out God’s plan is different than our plan?"

But we should also understand that God’s specific will for you will never violate His revealed will in Scripture. So for the person who says, “Look, I’m going to be leaving my wife because she’s just hard to live with and I know this is what God wants because I know God wants me to be happy” -- well, I hate to blow your TIRES, but that is not God’s specific will for your life. Your happiness is way down God’s line.

How can I be so sure of that without even knowing you or your situation? Because that violates what God’s revealed will in Scripture is for you as a husband and a wife. And God will never ever give you a specific will that violates His revealed will.

The reason that’s important is because knowing His will has a lot less to do with information and a lot more to do with submission - because it isn’t until we submit our will that we can know His.

And I think a lot of us would say, “I’m doing that! I have submitted myself to God.” But I think what we very often say is, ‘God, I want what You want for my life,’ but what we REALLY mean is: ‘God, I want what You want as long as what You want is what I want.‘

I’ll admit that crawling on the altar and submitting our wills to God and saying, ‘Whatever You want, God,‘ is a very dangerous pray because we have plans and we have ideas. But when we pray that prayer, we run the risk that God’s plan is possibly going to be different than our plan, that His schedule for this week could be different than our schedule for this week, that His appointments for us on Monday could be different than the appointments we’ve already got lined up for Monday.

I mean ... what if we start praying that kind of prayer and it turns out God’s plan is different than our plan? Well, it WILL be. You’ll find that it IS.

And be blessed.