Deo Volente (God Willing)
As we ponder the questions of where we have been, where we are, where we are going, there is an important question we must ask ourselves first, what does God will? Perhaps this is obvious. Perhaps this is a question you ask yourself regularly. If so, this discussion may not be something you need. Even so, you may yet find this discussion useful; so hang with me. For the rest of us, as we seek to move forward in life and ministry, and as we ponder the future of the Advent Christian Church, this discussion is vital.
As we examine this issue, it’s first important for us to frame it properly. Given that this is a blog post and not a scholarly paper, I don’t know that it is the place to unpack all the theological issues surrounding the will of God. So, I will simply say this . . . I am of the belief that God is going to orchestrate His will whether it is our desire to join Him in it or not. So, the question for me, is not whether or not God’s will is to be accomplished, so much as whether or not I will find myself to be a willing participant. This is an important distinction, because it stems from how we view God. Do we see Him as sovereign? To what degree do we see Him as sovereign? What does it mean for God to be sovereign?
For many of us, God’s sovereignty is something we (even without noticing) place limits on. And those limits are often a result of our own limitations, or our own lack of trust in God’s nature and being. We see this with Abraham, to a degree, when he intercedes for Sodom in Genesis 18 (vv. 22-33). In this passage, God has just shared with Abraham that he intends to wipeout Sodom, sparing none. This, of course, would be stunning for Abraham, particularly as his own nephew, Lot, is a resident of this wicked city. So, Abraham pleads before the Lord, asking Him to spare the city on behalf of the righteous that may live there. Of course, the ultimate culmination of this story is that there are no righteous to be found, though God spares Lot and his family anyway.
Sailhamer, in his commentary on Genesis, wrote: “the central issue of the discourse between Abraham and the Lord is expressed in Abraham’s question, ‘Will not the Judge of all the earth do right?’”[1] Even though Abraham’s faith in God was clearly growing, this does give us a picture that Abraham was still struggling to trust fully in the nature and being of God. For Abraham to ask this question suggests that there was either a shadow of doubt in Abraham’s mind that God is perfectly righteous and perfectly just, or there was a shadow of doubt in Abraham’s mind that God had a full understanding of the situation.
In either case, this record from the life of Abraham is one that most of us can probably resonate with. If asked directly, Abraham would have certainly said that he believed fully in God’s justice and righteousness. He would have said that he believed fully in God’s perfect understanding and sovereignty over all things. But when faced with this grave situation, Abraham found himself questioning the will of God. So is the case for many of us.
There are a lot of challenges in front of us on every level right now. Personally, and in our families, we are probably all feeling the effects of COVID-19, whether they be financial, emotional, or even of a life and death nature. Nationally, we have certainly faced a significant amount of civil unrest, unlike what we have ever seen before. As a denomination, there is no doubt we are struggling. We have been for some time. We are dealing with church closures and have many struggling congregations. There is, legitimately, uncertainty in our future.
Faced with all these challenges, there will always be the temptation to seek after our own solutions. There will always be a temptation to try point fingers and blame our problems on others. There will even be a temptation to see those who disagree with us as enemies, and not just enemies of you and I, but as enemies of God. While there may be some degree of truth in some of these responses, each one places limits on the sovereignty of God. And, not only that, each of these responses is generally birthed out of our perceptions of the will of God, and not the will of God itself.
You see, we serve an infinite God who is beyond our understanding. Whenever a finite being seeks to fully understand the infinite, they will inevitably fall short. Our grasp of what God is doing all around us will always be opaque. We will never see the full picture clearly. We can glean this from this account from Abraham’s life. So, our first question in any given situation should not be, how can we best succeed in this situation? Or, how can what I want to see be best achieved? It certainly shouldn’t be, Lord, join me in achieving my desires? Instead, we should be asking ourselves how we can best join God in achieving His will . . . WHEREVER that leads.
Deo volente. (God willing.)
Notes:
[1] John H. Sailhamer, “Genesis,” in The Expositor’s Bible Commentary: Volume 2, ed. Frank E. Gaebelein (Grand Rapids: Zondervan, 1990), 152.