One sentence sums up God's plan for your life

We can spend a lot of time and mental energy wondering if we're on the right path, wondering what God's 'will for our life' is, and whether we're in it. But I feel like God's will for us is less an exact series of precise decisions that we can potentially stuff up at any minute, and more a way of living our lives aligned with His heart. The specifics are less important than we often think. So if you're wondering what exactly is God's will for my life? One sentence sums it up...

God's will for you is to reach spiritual maturity.

Maybe that sounds too simple. But think about it. If you are spiritually mature, you:

know God's heart more
have the fruit of the spirit abundantly in any circumstance
love like He does
understand His words
see His kingdom more clearly
become more like Christ

All of this makes it much easier to be led by the Spirit, wherever you are, whatever you are doing.

It's like knowing a friend or your husband really, really well. My husband doesn't have to be there for me to know what he will like or dislike or find funny or annoying about a situation. It's a bit like this with God. The more we know Him, the more we are aligned with His heart and will.

Whatever decisions or circumstances we encounter, this is something to keep in mind. If we see everything as an opportunity to grow in maturity, to grow closer to God, how would that change our mindset? How would that change how we respond?

Eph 4:14-15 Then we will no longer be immature like children. We won’t be tossed and blown about by every wind of new teaching. We will not be influenced when people try to trick us with lies so clever they sound like the truth. Instead, we will speak the truth in love, growing in every way more and more like Christ, who is the head of his body, the church.

We sometimes believe that God's will is unknowable, that we can't comprehend it, that we just have to blindly step out and cross our fingers and hope. But while God may not reveal to us the precise details and step by step layout of our lives, minute by minute, or even year by year, I don't think it is right that we can't know His will.

It's like saying of a friend, "We are good friends, but I'll never really 'get' him, I'll never really know what he likes or wants or will do." That's not how it happens. The more we know someone, the more we understand them.

It's the glorious grace of God that He is so beyond us, and yet, we can know Him. We are not servants, in the sense of acting out of obligation. Jesus calls us friends.

<sup>I no longer call you servants, because a servant does not know his master’s business. Instead, I have called you friends, for everything that I learned from my Father I have made known to you. John 15:15

Jesus has made known to us everything that the Father told him. By growing in spiritual maturity, we discover more of that revelation, and we understand more of it. We are changed and renewed by the Spirit to understand who God is and what His perfect will is.</sup>

Do not conform to the pattern of this world, but be transformed by the renewing of your mind. Then you will be able to test and approve what God’s will is—his good, pleasing and perfect will. Romans 12:2

And we get beyond the simple mindset of wanting to know God's will, as in every little specific decision just for ourselves, in a little anxious bubble, and instead we more easily move in the flow and peace of the Spirit, in harmony with God's big picture for His church as a whole.

If God's will for us is that we grow in spiritual maturity, we can be sure that in every circumstance, bad and good, we have the opportunity for this to happen, and God will provide you with everything you need to grow and not be crushed. Let this change your thinking when faced with challenges.

Consider it pure joy, my brothers and sisters, whenever you face trials of many kinds, because you know that the testing of your faith produces perseverance. Let perseverance finish its work so that you may be mature and complete, not lacking anything. James 1:2-4

No box is big enough

A thought occurred to me last night, as I lay in bed talking to God. I felt that God was close to me, that I could talk to him one on one, with his full attention. Then I imagined everyone else in the world. The billions of people who could also be talking to God at the same time, with this same full attention.

Just think about that for a moment. A being who can be everywhere at once, and not be diminished at all. Who can talk to you intimately like a loving Father while also doing this for billions of others, but never being diminished or distracted or too busy.

It's hard to wrap your mind around. If we are talking to one person while trying to listen to another conversation, we can barely take in any of it.

And while there is so much in that about God as Father and how loving he is, and how we can have such an intimate relationship with him...none of that is unimportant or trivial. But the thing that occurred to me last night was, how can I possible ever think I've got God figured out?

We can know more and more of Him, but we are barely scratching the surface.

Yet we continue to try and fit God into a neat box so we can manage Him. And if he does something that makes Him not fit into that box any more, we just recalculate and decide that we just need a bigger box.

But no box will ever be big enough. He is outside of the time and space, beyond anything our earthly minds can comprehend.

If I can't even understand how it's possible that He is even talking to me, then how can I suppose I know and can fit into neat boxes who he is and what he will do?

And yet, by His spirit to ours, He gives us glimpses of things greater than natural life. He does make it possible for us to know Him. Bit by bit, the more we spend time with Him, the more He can reveal His glory, the more we have life by the spirit, and the natural things no longer bind us. We begin to live and know more than is naturally possible, by His spirit.

If we are only willing to accept and know God as much as we can understand Him or define Him, we are missing out on so, so, so much.

How small is our God if we allow Him to be only what we can comprehend? If we allow Him to act in only ways we could have thought of for ourselves?

Don't just look for a bigger box to contain Him, trust that if you stop trying to work Him out, He will supernaturally make himself known to you.

You might think it will be scary or confusing if you let go of the box and allow Him to live in you - in us, His house, His church - in whatever way He wants. But in God you will find so much love and so much grace - you will find so much divine peace that it completely passes all understanding!

The difference

I missed my devotions the other morning.

I had started doing them every morning - just a short one, 10 minutes sometimes. But I was starting every day with one. And then one morning people were in our house, I slept in too late and so I went into the day without doing it.

What difference would 10 minutes make?

But it did. The day went differently. I didn't realise it until the day was almost over, and I was thinking back, wondering why I felt different today. Agitated and less at peace.

Nothing in particular went wrong - in fact it was a fairly easy day, and probably less went wrong than other days. But I was different. The way I felt about the day was different.

I didn't realise it until I missed that one day, but since I had started doing devotions every morning, a small inner-peace started going everywhere with me.

It's not like I never read my Bible or prayed before, but I'd never done it consistently. And I didn't start my day with it.

It makes a difference.

Just a thought...