The Will Of God

Recently I had an interesting discussion with a Christian psychiatrist about the will of God. We discussed why certain natural disasters occur and why they happen. We both agreed that God is not the One Who directs these things to occur. And, yet, all things on earth somehow must be part of the will of God since He is Ruler over all. As the sovereign King of Kings, He must preside over all that happens in His universe.

Inasmuch as theologians have wrestled with how everything somehow fits into the will of God, they talk about the will of God in two aspects: the permissive will Of God and the directive will of God.

God permits calamities to come, but does not cause them. God permits things like the tsunami that took so many lives lately, devastation through the dreadful earthquake that struck Haiti and killed over 200,000 people in a moment of time, earthquake and mudslides in China, floods in Pakistan which have killed many and have left four million or more homeless. God permits nature to work according to principles which He has ordained. He uses these catastrophes to work out His will in the lives and hearts of us all. By ignoring the warning signs in nature, man is often a victim of his own carelessness. Many more lives are ruined because of sin. Yet we must always remember
that "God is patient not willing that any should perish, but that all should come to repentance" (II Peter 3:9). God allows sin to do its destructive work in hearts and lives to stop them in their downward slide and bring them to repentance. Many times have taken place when we can see God at work through illness (eg. cancer through smoking, liver problems through drink, disease though illicit sex, various illnesses due to obesity and a bad diet) to bring souls to repentance. In the midst of these illnesses God works to bring mankind to a place where they will cry out to Jesus for salvation. All this and much more we can attribute to God's permissive will. Things do not happen by chance, but according to the permissive will of God.

The directive will of God must also be considered when we think about God's will. This is where God decrees certain events and happenings to take place. Consider how the Bible puts it in the case of King David, a man after God's own heart (Acts 13:36 "For David after he had served the purpose of God in his own generation, fell asleep i.e. died". It is God's directive to have His children suffer many tribulations to enter the Kingdom of God (Acts 14:22). They cling to the Lord and grow in Him through adversity. Sometimes God directly intervenes to make His will known. For example, Paul was directed through a night vision and the urging of the Holy Spirit to go to Macedonia (Europe) rather than going to more of Asia (Acts 16:6-10) Historically it can be demonstrated that as a result of this strategic move the Gospel came to Europe and ultimately to North America.

The believer is directed through: the Word of God, prayer, advice from godly Christians, circumstances, etc.. We must desire to do the will of God (Psalm 40:8).
Our attitude must be like our Saviour Who in the Garden of Gethsemane prayed "Not my will, but Thine be done" (Matthew 26:39). It was the will of God for Jesus to die in our place so that sin would be punished and God's grace extended to us, who are sinful and in great need of salvation.

To summarize, we are safest in life when we long to be "captured to do God's will!" (II Timothy 2:26) May the Spirit of God help us to do the will of God through understanding His permissive will and through doing His directive will. God bless us all that we may be captured to do God's holy will.