Trusting God’s Will For Your Life
Trusting God’s will and His plan for our lives is the most important thing we can do as believers. God’s plan for our life is much better than any plan we can come up with or find for our lives. It will not always look or develop as you expect, but trust that God knows best and only wants what is best for us.
If we believe that God is a good, loving, generous, and wise father who always acts in His children’s best interest, and He is, then we should desire His will to be done in our lives. So, relinquish control to God and stop trying to be in control. Have patience with the process and trust in God and the finished work of Jesus. He knows where He is taking you, preparing the pieces, and opening the doors. There is nothing in your life that God has not planned for in advance. He has a plan for recovery, victory, and success in every failure, challenge, and situation you face.
It doesn’t mean you won’t experience hardship or challenges. Following Jesus’ example and trusting God will not always be simple or easy, and Jesus warned us that it wouldn’t be (John 16:33), but we also know that we will not be alone in our journey of obedience and trusting God’s will. Your walk with Jesus, the example for our relationship with our heavenly Father, will challenge you. You will walk through the darkest seasons and triumph on the highest mountains. It will be a journey of ups and downs, yet Jesus will be by your side if you trust Him through it all.
Following God is not always easy, but it is the best path. You must trust in God, and His will even if you don’t see, understand, or agree with what God is doing in your life. God always acts in accordance with His will, which is good and perfect, even though we might not understand how or why He makes the decisions He makes. His ways are not our ways, nor are his thoughts our thoughts (Isaiah 55:8-9). To trust God’s will requires a willingness to do so and the choice to surrender your will to his.
Every person has self-will, that is, the free will to exercise their own will and make their own choices; the freedom of choice. When a person chooses to exercise their will to seek and serve God, it becomes a submitted will, and when they choose selfish pursuits based on self-interest, it becomes a self-centered will. Submitted will is the deliberate, purposeful act of surrendering one’s own will to that of God and trusting in His will for your life. We are to surrender to God’s will and authority in our life. We see this demonstrated when Jesus instructs believers to pray for the will of our Father in heaven.
“9 Pray then like this: “Our Father in heaven, hallowed be your name. 10 Your kingdom come, your will be done, on earth as it is in heaven.” – Matthew 6:9-10 (ESV)
When you say “your will be done,” you are canceling your own. As believers, we are to live a submitted will life to God. Letting go of selfish pursuits and self-centeredness, turning away from what we think, what we want, and what we feel, and making the decision to surrender to God. To submit your will to God is a commitment to obey and do the will of God regardless of what you want or the fact that it is not what I want at the moment.
It is not a one-time event. You must trust God’s will for your life daily, submit your will to His, and create a lifestyle of committing to Him every day, in every moment. In doing so, you demonstrate your faith and trust in Him. When you do, you’ll begin to see He is molding your heart and soul along the way, developing you and your life into the vision He has prepared and planned.
Don’t worry about the “how.” Don’t let yourself get so focused on the destination, where you think you should go or should be, that you grow impatient and frustrated with the path on which God is taking you. God’s ways are bigger than ours; with Him, all things are possible. Let God be in charge of the “how” in your life, and know that He is enough. When we trust in his will, we put our hope and dependency on Jesus.
We make decisions based on what we want and what we know. God makes decisions based on what He knows. Will you put your will over his? What we know is like a single frame in the video of our lives, but God can see it all from the beginning to the end. Failing to surrender your will to the will of God never works in your favor.
God will always give you a choice, and when you choose Him, you choose life and blessings. Blessings that the devil will be unable to curse. When you decide to trust in and submit to His will, you are granted full access to His protection, provision, and guidance.
“19 I call heaven and earth to witness against you today, that I have set before you life and death, blessing and curse. Therefore choose life, that you and your offspring may live, 20 loving the Lord your God, obeying his voice and holding fast to him, for he is your life and length of days, that you may dwell in the land that the Lord swore to your fathers, to Abraham, to Isaac, and to Jacob, to give them.” – Deuteronomy 30:19-20
The curses are away from God. He doesn’t send them to you; you choose to go to them. They can only exist where there is an absence of blessings. Choosing a self-centered will leads you away from God and the blessings and to the curses. If your will is not exercised with God, it is apart from God. Choose life, and not even the devil can curse what God has blessed.
Following where God leads will require sacrifice. Saying “yes” to God means saying “no” to other things. To things that might feel good at the moment but have long-term consequences. Following God means dying to yourself, giving up some of your dreams, and realigning your priorities and objectives. Allow God to kill off some dreams while He brings to life new ones.
Submit your will to God, and He can exercise his will and power in your life. Yes, the road of saying “yes” to God may be difficult and filled with uncertain days, doubts and questions, trials and challenges – but it will all be worth it in the end when you’re living according to God’s will for your life and bearing fruit for his kingdom.
This sermon and writing this article have shown me how important it is to live life with a submitted will and trust in God’s will. I pray that this article helped to encourage you. Keep an eye out for my next article, where I write about “Developing a Kingdom Mindset.”
The information expressed above are excerpts from the sermon “Trusting God’s Will For Your Life ” preached by Dr. Lee A. Simpson. You can listen to the complete sermon on our YouTube channel.
Jonathan Craddock is a licensed minister at Faith Clinic Christian Center Church and has been a dedicated Christian and follower of Jesus Christ for over 12 years. He enjoys deep diving into scripture, learning about God, faith, and walking with Jesus. He is a writer for the blog “God & Gospel: Faith for Life,” and his vision is to help people to understand and apply the sermons they hear, the word of God, and their relationship with God.