Interfering with God's Will

I wonder how often we pursue God's will and at the same time interfere with His will. What am I talking about? Well, often we are willing to do what God wants us to do. We meditate on the Scriptures and we strive to be pleasing to Him in all that we do. We really do care about His will for our lives and likely have even read a book or two on the topic. I know I have preached and written about God's will on numerous occasions.

However, it is not enough to find or to know God's will. Some make finding God's will an end in itself. "I found it", they proclaim, and yet they do not live it. They hear but do not obey.

Lately I have been thinking about another problem we run into when seeking God's will. We find it and we assure ourselves that we know what God wants for us but then we get impatient. We know what God wants and so we decide to help Him bring it to pass.

The best example of this of course is the story we find in Genesis when God tells Abraham and Sarah that they will have a child in their old age. They wait and wait and wait. They know what God is going to do, but they do not know how He is planning to do it and finally their impatience leads them to the decision to have Abraham take Sarah's maidservant Hagar and with her have "their" promised child.

We need not look far to see the turmoil that this decision has wrought upon the world even still today. But what happened?

I have termed this "Interfering with God's Will." This happens when we are sure that we know what God wants, we have clear direction spiritually speaking, but we try to make it happen. We try to force it. We think that God's will depends on us and so we think about ways to make sure that we can make God's will happen. We offer Him a helping hand.

We need to be reminded that God's will is going to happen! We also need to remember that Jesus did not teach us to pray, "God help me find your will." He prayed, "Your will be done." And it will be!

So why do we interfere? Why do we think that we have to make things happen? Why do we have to be so impatient and so in a hurry? Often we miss the lessons, the faith building challenges that God has provided for us so that we can know and trust Him better. Often, too, it is immaturity. Experience and wisdom teach us that we must indeed let God be God and learn to walk by faith and not by sight.

Do you know what God wants for you? Trust Him. Wait on Him. Be still as He works. And learn what it means to pray, "Your will be done, on earth as it is in heaven." Then, if we live like we pray we will not interfere but will instead find the joy of knowing and doing God's will, in His way and in His time.

Next time you think you know what God is doing, stop and wait to see how He is going to do it. And remember, if you try to make it happen your way instead of His you have followed in Abraham and Sarah's footsteps, but not in a good way!

Don't interfere. Persevere!