It Must Not Have Been God's Will (3.12.13)

Matthew 4,4: "Man shall not live on bread alone, but on every word that comes from the mouth of God."(NIV)

How often God does not get his way when we are faced with choices!

But instead of admitting that, so many of ua say "It must not have been God's will."

No, not necessarily.

Perhaps we applied no mustard sized seed of faith to the matter.

Or, perhaps we tuned out God's voice, or ignored his word.

Perhaps we were attacked by a bad case of tunnel vision.

I know that tunnel vision church guy, and I suspect you do too.

Or, mayby we are just too impatient to receive anything from God, on his time table, because by the time we are about to receive something good, we have moved onto something else altogether.

If one of these is the case, the good thing we expected might truly have been God's will, as much as the ten commandments. But then again, we all did finally receive the ten commandments.

So when we don't receive what we expect from God, somehow the problem is on our end (and sometimes blessings require cooperation from other folks too, but we'll leave that discussion to another day).

The fact is we human beings sometimes equate not getting what we want with God's will, when we just didn't faith up to our part of the deal.

It could also be that we haven't wrestled with the fact that God doesn't play faith favorites, and we are only going to reap the things we sow.

So (what do I know) if we have sowed little into God's word and promises, is it really God's will when we reap little?

Back to the tunnel vision guy- it's great to have focus and purpose in our lives of faith. But sometimes we can get so focused that we only allow God to speak in one or two areas of our lives (or churches), and we miss big stuff like witness and the joy of our salvation (cf Revelation 12,11), not to mention, spouses and families, if any. 

Anyway, a God that can only speak in one or two areas of our lives or churches is a very human-sized god who seems to have a limited, and not overly generous will!

Or, think of it this way, the bible doesn't say cast some of your cares, the ones you think are important, or presentable, or manageable, on Jesus.

It says "cast all your cares on him for he cares for you."

When it comes to God's will, we take comfort in his promise that he knows us and our voice, and we can know his, and thereby follow him (John 10,27).

A voice we know and follow becomes a voice that gladly expresses His will regarding all the matters of our lives, a voice we can trust, and would gladly and eagerly hear often.

So think of it this way, if we can learn to know his voice and follow him, and we already have his written word, I'm thinking we could know his will in way more situations than we presently acknowledge.

I'm thinking also that God is worthy of a prayer consult every day, say before we make out our daily plan.

"Give us each day our daily bread."

Yes praise God, we all do get physically hungry, daily in fact.

But we do not live by bread alone, even after forty days of fasting, but by every word that comes from the mouth of the Lord.

If all us acknowledged this 'every word' standard, I'm thinking we might not say "It must not have been God's will" as much as we do.

Then, this quaint phrase could be saved for when we are truly stumped!

Br. Tobin