Finding God's Will: An American Evangelical Obsession

Our culture is obsessed with the notion of choice. This becomes especially apparent when you’ve been out of the country for a while. I can remember returning to the states after spending a couple of months in the hills of Northern Thailand and Burma. My first trip to Target was overwhelming. I distinctly recall standing on the toothpaste isle overcome. There must have been 40 different choices. I felt immobilized by the number of options. However, it didn’t take long for me to settle back into the decision-driven, choice-filled ways of our culture. We have an abundance of choice in America. This past week when I was in Texas, our rental car had XM satellite radio. There were 100s of channels to pick from. There was XM1 and XM2 including a station for every major city, news station and even sports teams. Cable TV offers well over a 150 channels and that’s not even the deluxe package. Much of our time is spent weighing our options, balancing pros and cons, whether it’s picking out toothpaste, choosing what channel to watch, renting a movie or selecting what college course to take. Americans spend more time shopping than any other society. They frequent shopping malls more often than houses of worship and 93% of teenage girls say that shopping is their favorite activity. So, in a decision-driven culture what frequently figures foremost is our life choices, US! He is a means to an end, the end of our choices. In fact, comparison shopping fuels the sense of self, the rush of choice, the power of purchasing. It is inevitable that this shopping-soaked, decision-driven culture will influence our perception of God and his will.

Projecting our consumerism and decision-driven lifestyles onto God’s will, we continue our obsession with choice. We seek God for answers, directions, “wisdom” BUT we do not seek God for God! We end up treating God like a Mall Information Booth Attendant. He is not a person to relate to, to know, to understand and enjoy, to worship; He is there to give us direction. We cry out to God, “Just show me where the GAP is so I can get there!” Other times we treat God like a comparison shopping chart or website. He exists to help us line up the products and possibilities of life, compare and contrast their features and options, and wallah- we make our choice! God is not the ultimate comparison shopping chart or website, dispensing wisdom for us to make decisions about what kind of toothpaste, computer, or movie we want to buy or what elective to take. God’s will for us is infinitely greater than supplying directions or narrowing down choices. Desiring help in deciding what God wants us to do with the myriad of choices set before us is understandable. Life is complex and God is sovereign and wise. And yes, God is sovereign over every hair of your head, but does not mean that He is constrained to tell you where it will part or fall. Often God is not primarily concerned so much with what we choose but how we choose it and with whom. God’s will for us is much greater than helping us execute a series of decisions to be made in mapping out our lives. Which raises the question, what is His will and how do we respond to it?