The Question to All Our Problems
It is often thought that the primary goal of education is to fill our heads with all the right answers; to be educated is to possess those answers. While there is some truth in this, especially at the grade school level, I have learned otherwise by now. As one seminary professor taught me, when we go to the Scriptures it is important to ask the right questions, and that moreover, we must learn from the Scriptures the right questions to ask.
What is true of Scripture is true of life. It’s no great wonder, because life’s deepest struggles are commonly rooted in the status of our alignment with the natural order of things, our struggle to live harmoniously. Of course, this is only a secular way of saying we’re trying (or not) to live in accordance with God’s will. The tumult of the Christian life is so often expressed in the desperate question, “God, what is your will for my life/this situation/etc.?” We ask it so often, one might begin to wonder if we are asking the right question...indeed, you should wonder.
In most situations, is God’s will for your life really some great mystery? Yes, there are exceptional circumstances in which you are faced with competing values and the resulting confusion, but is it generally so complicated?
No, it is not. In a verse, I’ll tell you God’s will for your life:
[10] As each has received a gift, use it to serve one another, as good stewards of God's varied grace: [11] whoever speaks, as one who speaks oracles of God; whoever serves, as one who serves by the strength that God supplies--in order that in everything God may be glorified through Jesus Christ. To him belong glory and dominion forever and ever. Amen. - 1 Peter 4:10-11 [ESV]
God’s will for your life is that you would bring glory to him through Jesus Christ, to whom you are joined by faith and through whom you receive the indwelling person of the Holy Spirit for the realization of both your sanctification and your commission as an agent of God’s glory. The extent of this glorification is without limits – He is to be glorified in everything.
Now, the critical mind is ready to snap this kind of simplicity by stretching the human imagination to the breaking point in considering the countless ways in which God might be glorified. Truly, only God could comprehend all the possibilities. Thankfully, He does not expect this degree of comprehension from us, if for no other reason than that it is totally unnecessary. You, human, are a small creature, with limited gifts, limited possibilities, existing within the frame of a particular time and place. Your options are graciously limited. Equipped with the divine Word of God and aided by the Holy Spirit, wherein and through whom God’s moral will and eternal purpose for human beings is disclosed, you have all that you need to answer life’s burning question, yet now recomposed:
How can God be most glorified in this set of circumstances?
I’m not trying to be simplistic here, only realistic. This is the only question you should be asking. Answering it demands that you have a sound and complete understanding of God’s Word. Anyone with an ounce of humility would recognize their imperfection here, which only speaks to our frequent and abiding need for one another as members of Christ’s Body in discerning the answer to this question. If you find yourself struggling to answer it, it is because you either lack knowledge of God’s Word (and it is better to realize this than to play a fool) or because there are other areas of knowledge involved wherein you lack expertise.
Regarding those areas of knowledge outside God’s Word, we can take heart. In asking how we might best glorify God, we have already committed ourselves to excellence – we cannot be satisfied with an elementary understanding of any area of knowledge relevant to the question of maximizing of God’s glory. That would simply be an admission of our actual disinterest in the question. However, beyond this, it would be wrong to think that God is only glorified by complete success. An inventor may fail to produce many successful inventions, yet he may glorify God in his perseverance, in the way in which manages his employees, and in many other regards. These glories cannot be separated from the pursuit of an invention that may yet end in failure. If we are sincerely striving to glorify God and have been faithful to Scripture, not confounding it, then we enjoy the freedom to fail. This is just another instance of the rich grace God extends to us.
In forthcoming posts, I am going to use this question as a foil, as a starting point for interrogating the challenges facing the Advent Christian denomination and the local church. I may even consider societal circumstances or personal circumstances – I’m not exactly sure where this ends. What I do know is that this question reminds us of our end, that we have been created and saved through Jesus Christ for God’s glory. You know your purpose, you know your problems, and now you know your question:
How can God be most glorified in this set of circumstances?
