These two ideas are not inextricably linked, of course, but when someone says they are still trying to “find God’s will for my life,” that statement alone at least somewhat assumes a belief that God will speak direct, specific extra-biblical things to us. While it is definitely clear that God has made us with specific gifts, desires, and talents, and that He is closer to us than a brother, having an intimate and personal relationship with his children, there is something fundamentally different about the renewed, reborn Christian. The re-made, reborn heart desires the means God has provided to speak to us whatever that may be, no matter how they feel about initially. That being said, my conceit here is that the bible is our final and authoritative guide not only on ethics, morality, philosophy, thought, and everything else that matters, but also for our lives specifically. I didn’t believe this at one point, believing that the bible was huge but not enough for the personal, subjective direction I needed. What did the bible have to say about college decisions and who I date? I needed the voice of God. I needed some vocal reciprocation to my prayers. I needed that “still small voice” to speak to me about what to do. Little did I know (despite the fact that I should have known better) it had everything to say. In truncated terms, God’s word will align your life, if God has truly transformed your heart, and the decisions that need to be made will be made in holiness. Every decision, at some level is a matter of holiness. No decision is immune from being moral in nature, being inseparable from your character and integrity.

I know that that’s a confusing or perhaps a seemingly over-generalized statement, but this is true because our motives are a huge part of our morality. So much so, that it would not be entirely inaccurate to say that they are equal with them. Many people would disagree with me there, saying that actions are of course more important than motives in most cases. But we all feel the same way here. Here’s an example. If someone buys us something, or helps us, or says a kind word about us, or apologizes for an offense, it’s not nearly as impactful if they did so out of nothing but a sense of obligation. “I did this because I had to. I’m done. Goodbye,” sounds drastically different than “doing this makes me so happy because it makes you happy.” Add to that the even greater weight and significance of "it makes God happy" and you've got a motive that almost anyone couldn't object to. So, it’s pretty clear to this writer that our motives and the emotional content of our actions are fundamental to our understanding the true “good” of our deeds, and that we largely agree on that matter as human beings. It’s there, internally, motivationally that we absolutely need the Lord’s work. It’s there we are most weak. In fact, it’s there we are dead. The bible says that the true Christian is someone who was “dead in [their] trespasses,” and whom God has now made “alive together with Christ— by grace you have been saved—” (Ephesians 2:5). When our hearts are made alive and entirely changed by God’s grace, we will desire Him and His ways. We will not know for sure if we have heard God inside our minds. We cannot know for sure that someone’s prophecy over us is truly God or not. We can trust for certain that God’s word is perfectly true and applicable to our lives today. David was shown this by God when he wrote that “Forever, O Lord, your word is firmly fixed in the heavens” (Psalm 119:89).

As we pray over God’s word, and ask him for understanding and crucial help to apply the word to our lives, we will draw nearer to Him.This type of view of the bible will quickly lead you to see and have a real, powerful, objective grounding in the reality. Then we will be free to remember that it was always about seeking and loving Jesus, and showing other people that same beauty and wonder. It won’t matter whether or not this decision is or is not in the will of God. Besides, most of the time we ask that question, we don’t actually know what we’re even asking for. We want to know what God’s will is for our lives in regards to what city we live in, what person we marry, what job we take, or even what person to sit next to in the cafeteria when we have no idea what we’re even listening for. In the meantime, we can talk ourselves into or out of anything, and with our fallen human nature still battling alongside our new redeemed one, if we’re relying on our own insights and instincts to guide us we will falter in anxiety and indecision. But if we listen to the never changing word of God, which always molds the hearts of those who have eyes to see, we will have the direction we need, “for the word of God is living and active, sharper than any two-edged sword, piercing to the division of soul and of spirit, of joints and of marrow, and discerning the thoughts and intentions of the heart” (Hebrews 4:12). If we’ve got God’s definite, written word cutting and moving things around at that level, the level of thoughts and intentions, everything else will fall into line in regard to our decisions. I couldn’t say it better than God’s word says it, and also far better than me at communicating it is John Piper. I’ve tried to show how God’s word and it’s finality and decisiveness over everything and anything else that claims to be a word or the word of God is true in our experience, but of course our experience is not the final determiner of... anything. Piper says it this way;

“The point for the writer of Hebrews [specifically Hebrews 1:1-2] is this: The Word that God spoke by his son is the decisive Word. It will not be followed in this age by any greater word or replacement word. This is the Word of God - the Person of Jesus, the teaching of Jesus, and the work of Jesus

When I complain that I don’t hear the Word of God, when I feel a desire to hear the voice of God, and get frustrated that he does not speak in ways that I may crave, what am I really saying? Am I really saying that I have exhausted this final decisive Word revealed to me so fully in the New Testament? Have I really exhausted this Word? Has it become so much a part of me that it has shaped my very being and given me life and guidance?

Or have I treated it lightly - skimmed it like a newspaper, dipped in like a taste-tester - and then decided I wanted something different, something more? This is what I fear I am guilty of more than I wish to admit”

(Piper,http://www.desiringgod.org/messages/in-these-last-...).

I and many of us are right there with you, Pastor John. This New Year, resolve to look not for a special, specific, subjective, extra-biblical word from God. The God who saves by faith also leads us by faith. Take Him at His Word, pray earnestly for revelation and understanding, and begin praying for clarity about your spiritual gifts and talents. Those things will lead you in the ways of God for a surety, and He will not fail to gift, utilize, and lead you if you are faithful to Him. I know this for certain, because His word tells me to “...work out your salvation with fear and trembling, for it is God who works in you, both to will and to work for his good pleasure” (Philippians 2:12-13). Work and labor, for we have the promise that it is God who is the active ingredient in our lives now, not only giving us the strength to do his will, but even giving us the desire to do it, which we in our own power do not even have. It will be hard, there will be obstacles and bumps, you will fail and get up and fail and get back up and fail and get back up and fail again and get up again. But in being victorious over sin, in having a home in heaven which cannot be taken away by anyone, and having the very friendship and affection of God himself, along with hundreds of other promises in God’s word, there is certain hope. This hope is true hope because it is in what God has certainly promised us, not what we hope to be true but have no foundation for. And in these last days, God has spoken to us through a Son, once and for all, and for all time.

Happy New Year