“Whether you like it or not…”

Now there’s a phrase every parent is familiar with. I’ve said it; you probably have, too, and probably in a lot of different contexts:

• “You’re going to eat those vegetables whether you like it or not.”
• “You will get in the bath whether you like it or not.”
• “You will do that homework whether you like it or not.”

It’s a declarative statement – something is going to happen; the child doesn’t really have a choice about it. They do, however, have a choice about their participation in it – whether they “like” it, or “not.”

In my own experience, most of the time it’s “not.”

Is it possible that the same statement is true, at least partially, when it comes to our relationship with our Heavenly Father? Of course, it’s broadly true because God’s will and way is going to go forward on earth regardless of who likes it or not. This is what it means to call God sovereign – it means He will have His way in the end, and no one can stand against Him:

“I know that you can do all things; no purpose of yours can be thwarted” (Job 42:2).

But what about in a more personal sense? In particular, is this true when it comes to God’s will in our individual lives? The answer, again, is yes… at least in a sense. So what is God’s will for our lives? In a broad sense, it’s the same thing for each one of us. God’s will for us, regardless of where we live, what career we choose, who we marry, or what opportunities we accept or turn down is that we become more like Jesus. Day by day, and even moment by moment, the Holy Spirit of God is making us more like Jesus, conforming us into His image.

To be sure, we play a role in that formation. Take, for example, Paul’s statement in Philippians 2:

Therefore, my dear friends, as you have always obeyed—not only in my presence, but now much more in my absence—continue to work out your salvation with fear and trembling, for it is God who works in you to will and to act in order to fulfill his good purpose (Phil. 2:12-13).

In these two verses, we find a beautiful kind of cooperation happening. God is working in us to fulfill His good purpose of making us like Christ, and we are at the same time doing the hard work of surrender. We are yielding Himself to His work, and that submission looks like the conscious choice of discipline and obedience. To take it back to the earlier illustration, this is when we “like” it. We are consciously and eagerly embracing the work of God in us.

But there are times when we like it “not.” Another example from Paul, this one from the book of Romans:

Therefore, since we have been justified through faith, we have peace with God through our Lord Jesus Christ, through whom we have gained access by faith into this grace in which we now stand. And we boast in the hope of the glory of God. Not only so, but we also glory in our sufferings, because we know that suffering produces perseverance; perseverance, character; and character, hope (Rom. 5:1-4).

Why can we rejoice in our difficulties? In our pain? Not because it’s pleasant, or even because things will get circumstantially better. We can rejoice because God is working in us through those difficult circumstances. This is a hard kind of rejoicing; it’s a “like it not” kind of joy. But we can nevertheless be just as confident in these seasons as we can in the “like it” kind of times. We can know that in either set of circumstances, God is making us more like Jesus… whether we like it or not.