What About What I Want? The Problem With Seeking God’s Will.
If you were like me and grew up in a conservative evangelical church, you most likely were tasked with something very important – finding God’s will. This search was woven into most decisions you made – who you dated, where you went to college, what major to study, who you married, what career you chose, etc… And it always seemed to be so elusive…where was God’s will hiding and why did we have to search so intently to find it? Also, missing in this equation was a very important question – “What do YOU want?”
In this blog post, we are going to take a deep dive into what is meant by the phrase “god’s will,” and some problems that can surface when focusing so exclusively on trying to find it.
What Is “God’s Will” In The Context of Evangelical Christianity?
I remember being taught about God’s will in the context of the Bible verse “For I know the plans I have for you” in Jeremiah 29:11. Leaders and pastors referenced this verse and taught about God having a plan for your life, a plan that would prosper you and not harm you, and a plan that would give you hope and a future. Sounds great! But the tricky thing was that you didn’t know what the plan was. Meaning, you had to figure out what God’s will or plan for your life was by praying about it and reading scripture, and then had to wait until he revealed it to you, or if that never happened, take a guess at what it was if the decision was time sensitive and hope for the best. I remember at times when I felt like God had not revealed his plan to me, but I had to make a decision, I would take “signs” and “clues” from the universe that God was nudging me in a certain direction, and hoped that I was reading the signs right. But there was always the fear, “What if I’m reading this wrong or making the wrong choice?”
The quest to find God’s will for one’s life was at times all-consuming. Big decisions were agonized over if God hadn’t communicated a clear answer because if you made the wrong choice (i.e. the choice that was not “God’s will”), then bad things would happen. Phrases like “living outside God’s will” or “going against God’s will” were thrown around, and we all knew that we did not want to fall into that category!
So What’s The Problem With That?
Some of you know I went to an evangelical Christian college for my undergraduate degree (I know, a VERY different time in my life lol…). There, I remember a conversation I had once with an acquaintance who was talking about what she was going to do after she graduated. “I think God is calling me to Uganda,” she said. I remember thinking for a split second, “Doesn’t that just meant that YOU want to go to Uganda?”, but then quickly dismissed my own devil’s advocate thought as me being my cynical self.
But I think back then I was on to something that felt off to me – that placing such a heavy emphasis on finding and executing God’s will… 1) can over-spiritualize our emotions (i.e. our natural longings or desires for something get interpreted as messages from God), and 2) doesn’t allow us to own what we want.
Seeking God’s will as the ultimate authority in your life also leaves out a very important part of the equation – what YOU actually want with your life. When we are constantly trying to discover what God’s will is for our lives, we can often ignore our own thoughts, feelings, and desires if they do not fall in line with what me might think God would be okay with. The natural result of ignoring our own inner process for too long is that we become dismissive or even distrustful of our own needs, wants, and preferences, when those are the very things that should be guiding our path forward.
The Narrow Path Of God’s Will…
To make matters more complicated, the lane of potential choices that could potentially be “in God’s will” is usually very narrow. For instance, I have never heard someone respond to the question, “What is God’s will for your life?” with a response like, “His will for me is to be the chef at a Michelin-starred restaurant in San Sebastián!” But what if that is what someone actually wanted?
Often what feel like choices that would be in God’s will (i.e. choices that God would approve of) would be things like being a pastor, missionary, helping others, a life of serving the underprivileged, etc. Choosing things outside of this lane might be seen as selfish or self-serving. But let’s take the hypothetical example of someone who wants to be a high level chef…if they were to feel like the only options that would put them “in God’s will” were to be a pastor or a missionary, they would have to deny, ignore, or suppress their own feelings and longings about what they actually wanted. When someone has to do that for long enough, the natural result is a belief that what they want or need doesn’t matter.
When Your Voice Gets Lost…
Perhaps you chose a career because you thought that’s the career God wanted for you, but now you are realizing that YOU actually don’t want it and would have chosen something different. Perhaps you chose to enter into a relationship that seemed to be “God’s will”, but you have realized it was never what YOU wanted in the first place. Perhaps you chose a life path because you thought it was God’s will for you, but now you are realizing you would have chosen something completely different if you had thought the choice was YOURS.
If the above describes you, here are a few tips:
1. Remember that your needs and wants matter:
What you think and feel about things, especially when they involve you and your life, is important. Envision what your life would look like if you were the one calling the shots.
2. Ditch the rigid binaries:
Either/or and black/white thinking can keep us trapped in behavior patterns that don’t serve us. Try to embrace the both/and.
3. Get support:
Therapy can be a great place to begin unpacking how some of these narratives might be keeping you stuck.
If the above describes you, and/or if you are a survivor of religious trauma or are in the midst of faith deconstruction, I would love to support you on your healing journey. Reach out today for a free consultation.