Everything That's On My Mind

I know I promised to begin discussing a framework for Godly decision-making, but I need to take a brief side-trip first. If you’ve been following this series, you’re probably at a frustrating point right now. “What happened to the wonderful plan?” you may ask. “If there’s no wonderful plan for my life, what’s the point?” Well, I’m not trying to say that God doesn’t have a wonderful plan for your life. What I’m trying to say is that He generally does not reveal it to us ahead of time. The “wonderful plan” is His Sovereign Will for creation. Therein lies the difficulty; understanding the sovereignty of God has been one of the great challenges for Christian thinkers across the centuries. A disagreement over the nature of the sovereignty of God is at the heart of the primary doctrinal division within Protestantism, that being the division between Calvinists and Arminians.

I do not presume to resolve that centuries-old debate with my feeble efforts, nor do I intend to address the issue of predestination and divine election in this series. If you are interested in those questions, I encourage you to click through to The Schooley Files. Keith is in the midst of a wonderful series on that topic that I highly recommend. That being said, there is no way to discuss the will of God without addressing the topic of God’s sovereignty. Suffice it to say that I consider myself a moderate Arminian; I believe wholeheartedly in the sovereignty of God, and I believe that God has created man with a free will. In this blog entry, I will attempt to explain how I believe these two facts interact with each other.

God’s sovereignty is an undeniable assertion of scripture. That is, He is the controlling, sustaining power over all creation. How God exercises His sovereignty is the question that vexes us. Scripture is not explicit, so it is clearly not necessary for us to fully understand it. We are, however, allowed to wonder and make assumptions. Clearly, scripture tells us we have the ability and responsibility to make decisions. Therefore we are free to make decisions. How is that possible if God is sovereign? The answer is, God has created mankind with the ability to make choices. Is it possible for God to control or pre-program every decision we make? Certainly. Does He choose to do so? I don’t believe so. Some would say I’m putting limits on God’s sovereignty, I don’t see it that way. In fact, I believe it gives MORE glory to God to imagine that He can accomplish His sovereign plan through and in spite of our choices, rather than by controlling them.

I don’t believe that God exercises His Sovereign Will over every decision we make. Crest or Close-Up? Paper or plastic? Chocolate or vanilla? I don’t know of anyone who prays seeking “God’s will” for such decisions, or even expects God to care. Even if you believe in a Personal Will of God for your life, you live your life making decisions about what it does and does not cover. Generally, those decisions are based on how worried we are about the impact of our decision. We want God to relieve us of any responsibility if things don’t work out the way we hope. That very idea is contrary to God’s character. He wants us to make decisions, both good and bad, and learn from them. No matter what decision we make, His Sovereign Will is accomplished in our lives. I love the way A.W. Tozer expresses this: