The Billion Dollar Question

What is God's will for my life? How many times have those of us in ministry been asked that by somebody else?  How many times have we asked that question ourselves?  It seems to be the question that every Christian is trying to figure out.  We're looking for the 3 step formula that will spit out the right answer.  Well, I think I found it...in the well known book of Amos.  Check it: "Seek me and live."  Found in Amos 5.4 and 6.

This command comes in the middle of Amos telling the Israelites how much they suck and how their sin has caused God's wrath to pour out on them.  What I find great about this is that even in the midst of Amos communicating God's anger with the Israelites, God still speaks words of life into the situation.  'Seek me and live'.  Not 'seek power and live' or 'seek wealth and live' or even 'seek happiness and live', no, 'seek ME and live.'

It seems too simple.  We can't just seek God and live...can we?

Paul, in Galatians 5.1, seems to think so.  "For freedom Christ has set us free; stand firm therefore, and do not submit again to a yoke of slavery."

This may seem redundant, that for freedom Christ has set us free, but think about it for a second.  We are so eager to be slaves, even after we have been saved.  We can't fathom what it would be like to be truly free.  So when we read 'seek me and live' what we wind up living is 'seek me and stress' or 'seek me and control' or 'seek me and insert whatever idol we can't shake'.

Christ did not free us from the death of sin so that we might be slaves to something like stress, or control, or even ministry.  He freed us so that we could be FREE.  Our desire to be slaves to something is evident in the fact that we are looking for someone to tell us EXACTLY what God's will for our life is, we need a blueprint, an exact plan that we can follow.  We don't know how to be free.

But I'm pretty confident we can learn because Jesus was the most free man I've ever known.  And if my heart is set on loving him and following him I'm pretty sure he'll show me what it means to be free...which is God's will for my life, and yours.

So there's your 'formula', sorry it's not what most of us were looking for, but then again, that's usually how God operates.