What is God’s Will for Your Life? (and what does the Bible mean by "good, pleasing, and perfect will"?)

It’s the biggest of the BIG questions:  “What is God’s Will for My Life?”  It's 2014 so, let’s Google it.  Results:  “About 29,600,000 results (0.41 seconds)  First up:  “Shop for god's will for your life on Google”  Shopping results?  - 10 pages of 15 items per page. 

I’m like the rest of you.  This seeking God’s will for my life has been huge.  In fact, I am tempted to peruse that list again, buy a few more books.  Yes, sorry to break it to you younger folks, but I've been at this pursuit for a long time myself.  It certainly isn't a one-time thing.  Nope, it isn't even a 5 or 10 year thing.  It’s ongoing.  God hasn't laid it all out, hasn't given me the luxury of writing down the five and ten year plans.  Heck, I’m doing good if I get a one year version every now and then.  We rarely get to walk out a Plan A for long before He interrupts again with “Guess what?  Change of plans!”    Adopt from China?  cool.  Homeschool?  well, okay.  China again?  And again?  Sure, Lord.  Foster parenting.  Umm, why not?  But, what's next?

Perhaps the greatest piece of wisdom the Lord ever dropped in my lap was this.  One day in my early twenties I asked Him, “I want to please you, Lord, so tell me: What do you want me to DO with my life?” 

He very clearly replied, “Don’t worry about what you are going to DO.  Instead, focus on your relationship with Me.  Who you will become and what you will DO will GROW OUT OF relationship with ME.” 

Nearly 30 years later, I can say that indeed, it has!  In so many ways!  But ironically the more I learn this, the desire for finding and doing His will becomes even more urgent and frequent.  (Which is exactly what God had planned for us all along!   ...   A blog post for another day.)

Recently, the Lord directed my attention to this verse again; Romans 12:2, the verse most closely matching the question, “What is God’s will, anyway?”    It states, “Do not conform to the pattern of this world, but be transformed by the renewing of your mind. Then you will be able to test and approve what God's will is--his good, pleasing and perfect will.”  (NIV.)

First is step one:  Stop conforming to the world’s ways.  

Step two:  Be transformed by renewing your mind.   Fixing our eyes on Him through worship, scripture meditation, prayer, and thereby leading to a transformation into His image.

Then, with those two, we will be able to test and approve – i.e., discern – God’s will.  Pretty awesome!  But wait.  What is this last part?  “His good, pleasing, and perfect will?”  

You mean there are three?

So I asked about this, and He very graciously helped me to understand it, as follows:  

“Discern my will … there are three, because there is a progression in this: from good, to pleasing, and finally to perfect.   That which is my “good will” is fundamental.  This should be relatively easy for you to discern when you hold something up to (1) my Word and (2) Who you know Me to be.  Embrace good; flee from evil.  Never ever forsake the fundamentals of what is my good will.  The other two build on top of this one."

“Next is my pleasing will.  It is discovered through discovering what pleases Me – what brings Me delight.  When you delight yourself in Me, you will find that you will desire to do my pleasing will.  Draw near and enjoy me.  Let love be your guide.”

“Finally, there is my perfect will.  It is in addition to the other two, and it is like hidden treasure.  To find my perfect will you must seek it like you would seek pure gold.  Think Indiana Jones here.  The pursuit of my perfect will requires tenacity and persistence.  Many will claim to want to know my perfect will, but few will continue long enough to actually grab hold of it and walk in it.”

He left me with a lot to ponder.   As always.  I know that there are many more treasures to mine in His Word, and in the biographies/autobiographies of those who walked in all three – His good, His pleasing, AND His perfect will.  

And, clearly, the answer will be one that each of us will need to uncover (throughout our individual lives), since we are all unique.

So, how will I respond?  How will YOU respond?  I think that a great place to start is here:  “Keep on asking, keep on seeking, keep on knocking.”   And in simply doing that we will have already begun to walk in his good and pleasing will.  For He is a Rewarder of those who diligently seek him.  Heb 11:6.

Matthew 7:7.  New Living Translation
"Keep on asking, and you will receive what you ask for. Keep on seeking, and you will find. Keep on knocking, and the door will be opened to you.”