The Will Of God

[Carol Kane]

Recently I have done a lot of thinking on the Will Of God. I have arrived at a thought. I have come to believe that there is one Will of God but two distinct choices (like for example One house two rooms), in that Will. One being Permissive and One being Perfect but both being within the Will Of God. The Choice of what aspect of Gods Will we choose is ours (free Will). We can either be in His perfect Will or His permissive Will. Any thoughts on this?

[Barbara Moulton]

Recently I have done a lot of thinking on the Will Of God. I have arrived at a thought. I have come to believe that there is one Will of God but two distinct choices (like for example One house two rooms), in that Will. One being Permissive and One being Perfect but both being within the Will Of God. The Choice of what aspect of Gods Will we choose is ours (free Will). We can either be in His perfect Will or His permissive Will. Any thoughts on this?

I use to think along these lines. But the more I thought about it, the more I realized that if I took this to its logical conclusion, it meant there was really only the smallest of possiblities (so small as to be almost non-existent) that I could be in the perfect will of God.

Because the moment I chose something outside of God's perfect will, I was forever going to be in God's permissive will, because everything that followed that first mis-step would not be part of God's perfect will.

For example, if marrying Carl 22 years ago was not God's perfect will, then everything that has happened in my life has been simply what God permitted to happen.

Go back farther. What about my husband? He was an alcoholic at 12, a drug addict at 16 and committed to psychiatric hospitals when he was 18. I met him when he was 22 and just starting to get his life turned around. We married four years later and now he pastors a church.

We have had a tremendous life together. He is the best husband any woman could want. He has been clean and sobre for 26 years and God has used all of his experience to minister to people that others have not been able to do.

But since obviously it was never God's perfect will for anyone to go through what Carl went through as a teenager that means that everything that has happened since hass simply been God's permissive will.

Believing in just those two wills also means that if someone steps outside of God's perfect will and their decision impacts upon my life, I could then be bumped out of God's perfect will for my life, through no fault of my own.

I sometimes think about the fact that my mother was engaged to someone else before she married my dad. What if God's perfect will was for her to marry that man? Then my very existence is simply part of God's "permissive will", since if she had married the other man then I wouldn't exist.

So in truth, my being in the perfect will of God, requires that all of my ancestors always were in the perfect will of God.

Unless my mother was a perfect mother then I am not the person God would have perfectly wanted me to be.

Such thinking could drive me nuts:)

So..,what I have come to believe is that God's perfect will for us is actually very, very general. He wants us to know Christ. He wants us to surrender. Once we surrender, there are a hundreds of thousands of ways that this surrender can be realized in our lives. In this moment of time, if I am surrendered, I am in God's perfect will. And each one of these perfect moments can lead to all sorts of possibilities.

And all of them can be part of God's perfect will.

What places us in God's perfect will is not making all the right steps but in surrendering all of our steps into the right hands.

[Dave McClung]

Recently I have done a lot of thinking on the Will Of God. I have arrived at a thought. I have come to believe that there is one Will of God but two distinct choices (like for example One house two rooms), in that Will. One being Permissive and One being Perfect but both being within the Will Of God. The Choice of what aspect of Gods Will we choose is ours (free Will). We can either be in His perfect Will or His permissive Will. Any thoughts on this?

I believe that God is more interested in our motives than in the specifics of our choices. Everyday, we have multiple choices. Any of them are in God's will if they are made with proper motives. When God has not given specific direction, I pray for wisdom.

Occasionally, God will direct our choices. When he does, there is no doubt. He doesn't require that we guess concerning his will. When God directs us to take specific action, the failure to do so is sin. There is no "permissive will" when God has directed us. God requires obedience.

[Barbara Moulton]

I believe that God is more interested in our motives than in the specifics of our choices. Everyday, we have multiple choices. Any of them are in God's will if they are made with proper motives. When God has not given specific direction, I pray for wisdom.

Occasionally, God will direct our choices. When he does, there is no doubt. He doesn't require that we guess concerning his will. When God directs us to take specific action, the failure to do so is sin. There is no "permissive will" when God has directed us. God requires obedience.



You said what I tried to say, far more succinctly.

Blessings,
Barbara

[Ian Gentles]

Superb answer Dave, best I have heard in a long time.

[Ian Gentles]

I beleive if our will is for God to lead us He will!
I honestly in a million years would never have seen myself as a chaplain to police, but as life has unfolded, God leading and preparing, here I am!

[Barbara Moulton]

Superb answer Dave, best I have heard in a long time.

Interesting that you agree with Dave Ian. Because believing that any one of many choices could be part of God's will, as long as the choices are made with the motive to please and honour God, is consistent with Open Theism.

:-)

[Hans Deventer]

Sttttttt! Quiet, Barbara! Remember, we are this underground movement, trying to undermine the true faith. Let's not be so obvious!
Brother Ian is heading in the right direction, but if we say so, it might scare him off! :fav12

[Ian Gentles]

LOL Sister, I will never be an open theist! :)

[Ian Gentles]

You are soo funny Hans, just wonderfull to know you :)

[Barbara Moulton]

LOL Sister, I will never be an open theist! :)

I once said I would NEVER leave The Salvation Army. :-)

[Carol Kane]

So are we agreed that there is only one Will but two parts to His Will which are determined by our motives and or choices? I think back to the 70's and a book popular back then by Watchman Nee called The Will Of God. I viewed it as obsessing about whether one could even hope to gain the Will of God. What dso you all think about that book, did I view it wrong?