Dear People Who Keep Company With God,
Back in the 1990’s we did the Henry Blackaby course on knowing and doing the will of God, titled Experiencing God. It is an awesome teaching on this subject, perhaps one of the best. I have been learning again the lessons of knowing and doing the will of God and I want to share some of what God has been re-emphasizing to me.
Knowing and doing the will of God is a life long encounter because the Lord desires a relationship with us, not some type of arrangement based on methods and formulas. However, there are some truths He gives to help us that only fully work in the context of a relationship. One of those truths is God is always at work around us. Jesus never asked the Father what His will was rather, He always looked for what the Father was doing and joined Him (John 5:19-20). So it is not God’s highest for us to seek His will for our lives, but rather ask Him to reveal to you what He is doing so you can join Him. In what He reveals to you is the will of God for you. That is the way Jesus did it.
Paul said it like this, “Find out what pleases the Lord” (Eph. 5:10). In terms of doing the will of God I can tell you some of what pleases Him, He is pleased with what He is doing not what we are doing. We can have a vision from Him (knowing the will of God), but that does not mean we are going about accomplishing it in the way that pleases Him. We have to continually look at what He is doing and seek to do that with Him. Jesus said, “We get life from every word that proceeds from the mouth of God” (Matt. 4:4). Note it says proceeds not proceeded; it is what He is saying not necessarily what He said. It really is His way or the highway, the highway being frustration, added expense, delay, misunderstanding and in some cases we just walk away from the whole thing believing it was never His will or intent for us in the first place.
I came to that place recently with the vision for The Father’s House. I know the vision is from the heart of the Father, but almost everything I have done in the past two years has not worked. I got so frustrated with all the doing that was not working that I started to question the vision and if I had even heard God in the first place. That was not a good place to be. I finally settled in my heart that it was the way I was attempting to do the will of God that was not pleasing to Him.
I discovered through this that God is working, but He is not doing what I thought He should be doing. Blackaby calls this the crisis of belief; I was in full-blown crisis. When you find yourself in that crisis you have to make some decisions. Am I going to continue down the highway of frustration or shall I stop and ask the Lord for a fresh perspective, for a fresh proceeding word? In retrospect that looks like a no-brainer, but in the heat of the moment it was very difficult to say enough. I was afraid if I did the vision would die, but finally the pain of continuing was greater than the pain of risking failure. However, the moment I surrendered God began to show me what He was doing and I just needed to shift my strategy to that.
As Blackaby states, “You must make major adjustments in your life to join God in what He is doing.”
We have to always make adjustments in our life to join God in what He is doing by His design. Knowing and doing the will of God really is a life long encounter with Him. That is one of the ways we have a relationship with Him, by consistently looking to what He is doing and adjusting ourselves to Him. God is calling all of us to stop and ask Him for a fresh perspective on our lives, for a fresh proceeding word. If we ever needed such a word it is now.
Many Blessings, BW