BY DR. RICHARD D. DOBBINS
For over 35 years our public schools have been teaching our children that they are the accidental spontaneous evolution.
This has produced a generation of Americans who are totally ignorant of any theological perspective on life. For them, human beings are just one among all other creatures on this earth.
Nothing is considered sacred about human life. This is what happens when God is left out of the equation of life. But even a casual observation of the universe bears overwhelming evidence of organization and design. God planned it all. In addition, the God who planned the universe has a plan for your life.
God Has a Plan for Your life
You are unique; there is not another person on earth like you. From your mother’s side, the chances that you would be born YOU were only 1 in 300,000. And from your father’s body came millions of potential human beings, no two of whom had the same genetic heritage. So when you multiply 1 in 300,000 times 1 million, then you have the odds that you would be born you or I would be born me. It is awesome.
So you have the opportunity to develop and reflect a likeness of Christ unduplicated in the universe. That is, Christ as He is reflected in your personality and in your body will be different from the reflection of Christ through the body and personality of any of His other children.
This means God has a unique purpose for you to accomplish in your life to go along with that unique reflection of His Son. There are things for you to do that no one else can do. There are places for you
to go that God wants to use you in uniquely, and there are people whom you can influence that no one else can touch.
God’s Will is Discovered In His Gifts
Every child comes into this world uniquely gifted.. That means you have certain unique abilities that no one else has. One of life’s greatest tragedies is to be found in a child growing up unaware of his or her gifts and talents, unaware of how unique he or she really is. So many children in our society are raised in environments of violence and drugs where survival demands all their attention. They never have an
opportunity to discover their gifts.
Parents can observe their children and encourage them to discover their gifts. If a child shows early ability to color well or do other things with his hands, he probably has “hand” gifts to encourage. Children who
put together words or handle numbers well at a young age are telling their parents they have “head” gifts. And children who are tenderhearted over friends’ situations or bring home animals to care for probably are gifted with “heart” gifts.
So many times, I see parents coerce their children into activities, sometimes because parents want to fulfill their own frustrated ambitions and dreams. But every set of gifts is important. It means that the child has some unique contribution to make to his or her world, and that is God’s way of letting the parent know where that contribution is likely to come from.
God’s Will Is Defined as You Exercise and Refine Your Gifts
So many people have mistaken ideas about God’s will. I never will forget what my early philosophy of God’s will was. It went something like this: The primary purpose of the will of God is to crucify your flesh. So if you could think of the thing that you would most hate to do and the place where you most hate to do it, that had to be God’s will for your life, because that would crucify your carnality and then Jesus could be glorified in what you do.
I grew to discover that God wants His will to be joyful for us. Nothing could be farther from the truth than to believe that God wants His will to be burdensome for you. For God’s will is exciting and God’s will is joyful, because it involves doing something we enjoy.
When we venture into different areas and explore them and experiment with them, that all helps to refine our understanding of God’s will. The purpose of education and training is to learn as much as you can about your gifts then to develop them as highly as you can. This may well result in a more refined definition and a different direction in your life. For the things you do best and the things that you enjoy doing represent God’s will for you.
God’s Will Is Discovered by Your Choices
The purpose of God’s will is to bring our choice into harmony with His choice. He has a will for us, and He has revealed that will in the way He has gifted us. But He wants us to come to the place in our relationship with Him where our desire is to do His will. He will make His will enjoyable for us. He will make His will exciting for us. But He wants us to do His will. That is my primary purpose in life.
The choices regarding the discovery and development of your gifts are among the most important choices of your life. That is why they should be made carefully, and they should be made prayerfully. I believe the person who wants to go God’s way and do God’s will will have a check in his or her own spirit, a discomfort, will be ill at ease about going in any other direction. When we feel at ease about the direction our life is taking, we need to realize that most of the time that is the Holy Spirit checking us to be sure that we find a place where the harmony of our gifts and His will come into focus. That is when we know we are going His way.
You need to see God’s will as a stream. You can step into and out of a stream. I know many people who see the will of God as a road that comes to a fork. If you take the wrong path at the fork, they say you can never get back into the will of God. I would rather see God’s will as a stream. At times you may step out and when you step out of it, you are going to miss the refreshing of that stream. But the fact that you are out of it does not mean you cannot get back into it.
Ask God to give you a fascination for and an urge to go down the way that represents His will for you.
God’s Will Is Always Good for You
God’s will is always good for you, but it may not always be pleasant. Most of us who have lived and worked in God’s will for a number of years know that it has been good for us, but we can think of many times when it has not been pleasant. It may not always be easy. However, it is always good.
Knowing God’s will is always good for you gives you that underlying joy, even in times when His will is not pleasant or the work that represents His will is not pleasant. You have that joy of thinking there is a meaning, a purpose, a direction to life.
Remember the life of Jesus. He lived it as a carpenter and as a fisherman. There were exciting times when the multitudes were praising Him for what He did. However, there were lonely and painful times when
He felt betrayed. Yet, even In the agony of Gethsemane, Jesus recognized the Father’s will to be better for Him than His own will (see Matthew 26:36-46).
So there needs to be that sense of perseverance. God will challenge us. He will enable us to do what we do not think we can do, but we must have the faith and courage to attempt H. When we attempt it, God enables us and confirms His will by enabling us to do things that we did not think we could do.
THE ABOVE MATERIAL WAS PUBLISHED BY GUIDELINES FOR GOOD LIVING, A PUBLICATION OF THE MEDIA MINISTRIES OF THE ASSEMBLIES OF GOD, VOL. VIII, NO. 94. THIS MATERIAL IS COPYRIGHTED AND MAY BE USED FOR STUDY & RESEARCH PURPOSES ONLY.
