Who's Who? The Voice of God or Man

Have you ever felt like everyone else seems certain about God's will except you? Not his expressed will through the Word, like 'give to the poor' or 'pray for your enemies', but the one that is discovered, or sometimes invented, like where you should live or whether you should take this or that job.

I've always been both baffled by and slightly envious of those who seem to know exactly what God's will is for their lives. Baffled because I wonder what makes them so sure - envious because I can't relate.

I used to wonder such things, but now I think God doesn't spend his time telling us what to wear, where to live and where to work - I think he leaves it up to us. As long as we are righteous and serving him - anything goes. I do think that some occupations, living situations and even dress habits might get us into more trouble than others, and can invite sin to come knocking. Either someone else's or our own. But otherwise than determining what is wise or foolish, good or better we can easily begin to think that God wants to make all our decisions for us. But that is far too easy.

Some folks seem to think that at every point in life (whatever measurement you use to determine a 'point' in life) God has a specific plan that you must discover. If we follow the Bible, we could wrongly conclude this - but he often worked around choices and through people. When Lot chose the plain - Abram by default chose the mountain. It could have gone either way, as much as we can say it was Lot's laziness that made him choose the plain (and hence Sodom and Gomorrah).

Certainly Jesus' life was more pre-determined than ours will ever be, but even if we choose to become 'slaves of righteousness' we don't become slaves of fate. At least, I don't think so. It is a fast track to bitterness handing your dreams or goals to an extremely realistic god lookalike that is essentially our own imagination.

This becomes particularly annoying when someone else is completely convinced of what God's plan is for you. That's where things get tricky. It becomes more annoying when they get angry at you for not seeing how their idea is directly from God himself (aka them). We often, and perhaps too frequently, get God mixed up with ourselves or someone else - depending on who can shout the loudest.

Sorting out the many voices in your head can be an exhausting task and I wish you luck with it. After all I've only added on more voice to contend with. But if it helps, God is a very good listener.