Maybe you know what it feels like to look up into the sky and hope God will write a message there for you to read. Maybe you have looked at some scrub brush and wished it would burst into flames so you could hear His voice. Maybe you’ve gazed longingly into your bowl of Alphabits and wished the letters would suddenly come together to spell out the answer to the one big question:

“What is God’s will for my life?”

At various times in our lives, we search for clarity in the answer to this question. Having asked this questions hundreds of times in my life, I’ve come to a couple of observations regarding my search for the will of God:

1. My search for the will of God is usually a search for the affirmation of God.

Rarely, if ever, do my own kids ask me a question without some kind of agenda behind it. For example, when they ask me, “What’s for breakfast?” what they really mean is “Would you please agree with me that we should have Pop-Tarts for breakfast?” We do the same thing.

Though we might posit the question under the guise of innocence, the vast majority of the time we’ve already made up our minds as to what we want to do. We aren’t really asking God what His will is, then – we are really asking God to agree with the decision we’ve already made. Sadly, we are so good at stuff like this – asking an innocuous question with some definite hope behind it – that we can even deceive ourselves into thinking we are purely asking for what God wills.

2. My search for the will of God begins with me walking in the will of God.

It’s very ironic when you consider just how much of life we actually already know the will of God concerning. The Bible is full of direct statements of God’s will. We know it’s God’s will that we refrain from sexual immorality; we know it’s God’s will that we give ourselves wholly to the ministry of the church; we know it’s God’s will that none perish but all come to repentance and therefore we know it’s God’s will for us to share the gospel in all our spheres of influence.

We don’t have to ask questions about things like this; we know what God’s will is. When you stack up the specific situations of life in which we might not exactly what God’s will is, they are paltry in comparison to those we do. Or to put it another way – we know more than enough of God’s will to always be walking in it.

When when you are walking in the will of God you know you are going to find the will of God you don’t.

Let’s not overcomplicate it, friends. As in all things, the Lord has been generous to us in this. We have all we need to walk in His will. So let’s not use our quest for God’s will as an excuse for not doing it.