How I Find God’s Will
I’m so excited to kick off this new series on finding and knowing the will of God. This is the perfect launching point to invite a friend to join us for the next 6 weeks.
(Have this lesson read to you or learn how to join the study.)
For lots of us, this year holds a lot of unknown big decisions. How I find God’s will in all that can be hard. It can fill us with dread of the unknown or excitement for what God will do. Questioning God in those situations can bring us greater confidence in him.
This year holds big opportunities for our family, but I can’t do it all. I told a friend, “I’m going rejoice in the ‘ gentle nos’ and see them as guiding me onto the right path.” I can see the closed doors with joy because after so many years of challenges, I see that those closed doors often lead me exactly to the place that God had for me anyway.
I hope in the linked lesson you can see, the beauty of our faith. God is with us in the joy and sorrows, and we can face the unknown with peace.
Click to sign up for the printable cards
God’s Will Revealed in the Old Testament
If anyone could picture what it looked like to have “The Lord go before them.” It would be the people of Israel. Israel had been slaves in Egypt for over 400 years when God sent Moses to confront the pharaoh. Of course, Pharoah didn’t want to let go of his workforce, but God used a series of plagues to show Pharoah his power. By the end of the plagues, Pharoah sent the Israelites and the wealth of Egypt with them.
God appeared to his people as a pillar of cloud in the day and a pillar of fire at night. He led them up to the Red Sea where they became trapped by Pharoah’s pursuing army, then the pillar of cloud went behind them to protect them while God parted the Red Sea and led his people across.
From there God went before them to the promised land. He fed them manna from heaven when they were hungry, brought water from a rock even when they complained against him, and kept them safe.
This verse is part of a speech Moses delivered to Israel at the end of his life. Then he stepped out of leadership and passed it over to Joshua.
Why is Deuteronomy Important?
Deuteronomy can feel like a book we pass over in favor of the more engaging books of the Bible. Later in the book Israel lived in sin and rejected God it was quoted by the prophets. The verses in Deuteronomy were the foundation of the legal case against Israel. In the New Testament, Deuteronomy is quoted 50 times.
How I Find God’s Will
So what is it that God wants us to see in this book? His directions are for our good. He is there, reliable, and faithful when we don’t understand what he is doing and try to go our way. He is the one who goes before us.
God was about to do another mighty work and make a place for his people, but they didn’t know that yet. You may not know what God is doing yet, but you can count on the fact that he is reliable. Faithfulness to the directions he gives in his word may be painful sometimes, but we can have confidence there is goodness in his direction to us too.
