Knowing God’s Will Is Not As Hard As You Think | Obedience .02 Transcript
This transcript has been edited for clarity.
Laura Wifler: Hey, guys! Welcome back to another episode of Risen Motherhood and happy Mother's Day, a few days early. I'm Laura and I'm thrilled to be here with you guys, and Emily's going to join me in just a couple of minutes. First, a few announcements all surrounding Mother's Day. The first thing I want to tell you guys about is, if you're not aware, we're actually a non-profit organization here at Risen Motherhood. We actually have a really fun way for you to be able to give someone who “has it all,” a Mother's Day gift. One thing that we offer, is that you can donate in honor of someone that you love, to Risen Motherhood. What that means is, you make a donation to us and then we will actually, depending on the amount, either write them a hand-written note to let them know that you have donated and contributed to the ministry of Risen Motherhood in their name and in their honor, or we'll send an e-card, just depending on the amount. You can go to the page risenmotherhood.com/dedicategift. Head over there to learn all about it. It's a unique way to honor a mom in your life.
The other thing that I want to tell you guys about, if you're still looking for an idea for a gift, I don't know if you guys all know but we wrote a book, Emily and myself. It's called Risen Motherhood: Gospel Hope for Everyday Moments. It's a book that's designed to encourage moms, wherever they're at in motherhood, to understand how their faith should inform their motherhood and give them gospel hope to find joy and freedom and to not feel as burdened in their motherhood. You can check that out. We designed it specifically so it would be really, really beautiful, something that feels giftable and fun to share with your friend or with a family member. Check that out at risenmotherhood.com/book.
Okay. I think that's all that I have for announcements for you guys. Let's get to the show.
Emily Jensen: We’re back in our Obedience Series and today we're talking all about God's plan for our lives, his will, we’ll answer all the questions that we have about obedience today. No, just kidding, lower expectations.
[laughter]
Laura: Yes, we’re going to talk about “God's wonderful plan for our lives,” that we hear so many people talk about. I'm going to be honest, Em, most, if not nearly all, of my anxiety in motherhood definitely comes down to me feeling like, “I need to make the exact right decision here.”
Emily: Oh, absolutely.
Laura: I'm consumed by it.
Emily: I think it's interesting because I'll put so much weight on that one moment. Like, “if I can just get this right, it's going to cause this domino effect on all the other things in life.” When, in the meantime, I'm maybe not focusing on how I'm treating my children in that moment, or how I'm loving my husband, or how, no matter what decision we make, I'm going to walk in faith. Whatever the Lord brings.
Laura: It’s recognizing that there could be a lot of right decisions. Oftentimes, I'll tell myself—the whole thing right now is, "Do the next right thing," and I think that's true. Thanks, Frozen, it's great. But, sometimes, I feel like I'm just going to be able to do the last right thing to do. It's the very last thing that I can come up with and like, "Here we go. We're just rolling into it."
Emily: I think some of it goes back to wanting a short cut, for me.
Laura: Absolutely.
Emily: Just tell me what to do and I'll do it. Then that removes my need to feel weak, independent, and pray, and follow the Lord. I'm being sarcastic here, but just that idea that if we make it about the 'thing,’ then it's about us and our strength and our effort and us figuring out God.
Laura: Yes. We want the insurance that everything is going to be fine, it's going to come out pain-free. But, then we have all of these choices. In 2021, there are probably 30 pacifiers to choose from. I'm not certain, I don't have a baby anymore, but I was looking at them the other day and I was like—Actually, I should probably up that number to 100? I don't know. If you're a new mom, you know. There are so many pacifier options and that can stress you out.
You are dealing with that, not just on the day that your first child is born but all the way through. I think we just want this security or safety of knowing, "Hey, if I make the right decision then my family and everything that I do, is going to be okay."
Emily: It's going to turn out fine. Oh, I know another one. I struggle with this. That I'm going to miss what God's will was for my life—
Laura: Amen.
Emily: —and my motherhood. I'm going to miss it. I'm going to look back and realize we actually were supposed to move to this other place and do this whole other thing. We'll talk about this even in relation to our work and motherhood, and our creative endeavors, or hobbies, or the vocation that we're getting paid for. Like, "Well am I missing what God's will is for me here? Am I out of step and God has this train that's going the other direction and I'm not on it?" There are some partial truths in some of that, but then it also can get real like, "I've got to figure out the puzzle. I've got to find the code."
Laura: Haven't you ever noticed that the people who are trying to find God's will for their life, are super stressed out and confused? When we're in that mode, we're like, "I've got to figure out God's will," we are so stressed out and confused. That doesn't make any sense. God's will is supposed to bring you peace. He does actually have a wonderful plan for our lives and it is actually specific. But, I don't think it's in the way that we think. The good news we want to share with you guys today is, you don't have to uncover it. He has revealed all that we need to know in his word.
Emily: You don't have to decode it.
Laura: We don't have to be detectives. We can figure it out and it's actually way more simple than we think. Let's just get into it.
Emily: Let's lay a little bit of foundation here. Let's just go through—We are flying over scripture right now and saying, "What is God's will for those who follow him?" First and foremost, "Be holy, as he is holy."
Laura: Sounds hard.
[laughter]
Emily: There you go.
Laura: Right away I'm like, "Meh."
Emily: This is something we see absolutely in the Old Testament over and over again, and then it's echoed in the New Testament. It actually talks about us being holy in all of our conduct. This is something God wants us to do. His will is first to be holy.
Laura: It is possible to grow in this. Even though I messed with it earlier, it is possible. With that, another one, "Loving God with all our heart, soul, mind and strength." This comes from when Jesus was talking with—Oh, man, an expert in the law or was it the rich young ruler? An expert in the law.
Emily: Yes. Yes.
Laura: He was just saying, "Hey, what do I need to do to be saved?" This was Christ's response. It was just summed up in, "Loving God with everything we are."
Emily: As we were thinking through this, too, I ran across a statement that we'll link in the show notes. It was, "God wants us to obey him from the heart." I think that's a really critical piece of the puzzle because sometimes we want to, "Well, I'll just love God and—I'll just love him."
[laughter]
We don't actually act on that. That's not right. He also doesn't just want our outward obedience, or the strict adherence to the laws, but our heart is far from him. That's like the whitewashed tomb of, "We're just heaping burdens on people." It's really important that it's both. This is why we jumped right into, "Love God with all your heart, soul, mind and strength,” because that is a crucial piece of the obedience puzzle and what he wants for our lives.
Laura: Another one building off "Love God," is, "Love others." Loving your neighbor as yourself. Galatians 5:14 says, "For the whole Law is fulfilled in one statement, love your neighbor as yourself." This is the good old golden rule in seeing everybody else as imago Dei, created in the image of God.
Emily: Another thing that God wants us to do is, go and make disciples.
Laura: My daughter, we have a little song that says, "Go and make disciples,” and she kept singing, "Go and get some diapers."
[laughter]
Every time I read that phrase now, I just think, "Go and get some diapers." That's not a command from the Lord, not to be confused as God's will for my life, but maybe some days it is.
[laughter]
Emily: That is amazing. That is amazing. I don't even know where to go from there. It's not the end of the Earth, it's the end of the house. Go as far as you need to go to get a diaper.
[laughter]
Laura: We have a little mission field in our home, isn't that what they all say?
Emily: Okay. This is good. God's will is for us to have a mindset of evangelism and discipleship in all we do. It's that thing we were talking about in the first show of “living Risen Motherhood.” Saying, "We're going to teach others to bring everything in life in obedience to Christ."
Laura: Another one is bearing fruit. We talk about this a lot as Christians, that is kind of a catchphrase for us. But, this really is God's will for us to have love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, gentleness, faithfulness, self-control. Actually, pause for a moment because we're going to just tease something up and coming at Risen Motherhood this summer. [laughs] Sorry, I can't even talk because Emily's grin is a mile wide. Emily, do you want to tell us about something?
Emily: We have a really exciting series coming this summer to the website. Our wonderful editor, Winfree Brisley, is working really hard on it behind the scenes. We're going to have a whole series on Fruit of the Spirit this summer. We’re going to be diving in each week into a different fruit of the spirit and looking at how that applies to motherhood and how we can live that out. We're hoping to bring in a lot of great guest writers for that, so it's going to be awesome.
Laura: Look for it to come this summer. We'll talk about it on social media and all the places so you'll be informed.
Emily: Will of God. We're back.
Laura: Will of God. Okay, here we go. There are places in scripture where it explicitly says what God wants us to do. Something like, we become like Christ. 1 Thessalonian 4:3, "This is God's will, your sanctification." Romans 12:2, "Do not be conformed to the world." There are some verses in the Bible where we can really see like, "Hey, this is just like a straight-up, this is how we're to act as a believer and if we're in Christ."
Emily: One thing I want to add to that, this wasn't clear to me right away is, but there are passages that say, "This is the will of God for you." Then there are just some more implicit things where for instance, looking at the creation aspect and creation fall, redemption, consummation. We're looking at the creation piece, how did God design this to be? Were there some explicit boundaries that were placed on this? It says, “This is what God's will for marriage looks like. This is what his will for his people looks like.” Whatever those things are, I would kind of group that in.
Laura: Yes, that's good. Lastly, To do good works and allow your light to shine before others so they may see your good works. That's Matthew 5:16. At the end of the day, we know we gave you a big list, but I'll never forget the time one of our team members mentioned. She said that her dad would always just say, "Love Jesus, do what you want." I thought that was so helpful of a summation of all of these different things. This idea that if we love Christ, if we love Jesus with our heart, soul, mind, and strength, then what we want to do will be informed and conformed to the image of Christ. We won't want to do something that's outside of God's law and commands because we don't want to disobey him.
That has been really, really helpful as I've made decisions and realized that, "Hey, there is a lot of freedom." On the last episode we talked a lot about how boundaries bring freedom and God gives us those, laid out in scripture. He lays out his boundaries for his people, but within that, there is such beauty and an open space for us to safely be able to live out all that he commands. So, love Jesus, do what you want.
Emily: For sure. A quick plug I would give to using something like the Abide Method, which we have on Risen Motherhood that you can download or work through a Bible study over the course of many, many years is really, really important here, because if we're going to know who Jesus actually is, and what the word of God actually says. I feel like in our culture today, there's a lot of redefining who Jesus is, and broadening what he said, or moving the fences around, or re-interpreting things. That is how we're going to know if we’re actually walking in his ways, and all of those things we just gave you about, these are the general things that God has for his will, came from our Bible study over the course of years and our understanding of scripture.
Laura: That's good. That's a good word. For our own personal lives, what does this look like? We have all these things laid out in scripture and like Emily said, we encourage you to go study that for yourself. But, then we have to actually apply it in our daily lives. I think this is one of those more difficult things. This is where, when I said to Emily a while ago, "I just want to make sure that I'm a good mom. I don't want to fail my kids." It's like, "Well, I know what God has commanded of me, but why am I still feeling this turmoil in my soul?" It's because how it plays out can sometimes feel a little bit more difficult.
Emily: This is where I think it's helpful for me to think through my allegiance and what order I have to go through in my mind of, "Okay, what does the Lord say about this?" His word trumps everything. Then walking through things like, "Well, what does my husband want to do? What do people who know me in real life want me to do?" Thinking, am I working through that systematically, or am I trying to obey or adhere to some of the things we were talking about earlier in the show and that we talked about in a previous show like, the microculture of my church community, or the people that I live around, or people that I'm following online, whatever those things are that I feel like “I'm supposed to be that way.”
Laura: To build on that, I think for me, whenever I'm making decisions, I look to the big three to nod along. That's first, God, like you mentioned, Em. As far as my understanding goes, “Is there biblical freedom here? Does this align what I know to be true in God's word? Is he opening the door here or am I just prying open with a crowbar?” Then second, I look to my husband. If I'm married, then, “Is my husband affirming this decision?” Then those close friends and family members. I would count Emily among this, where I'm like, "Hey, this is what I'm thinking. This is what I like to do. What do you think?" Are they affirming? Or are they raising concerns in something that I'd like to pursue?
This is something that my dad used to tell me. I'm pretty sure he got it from his pastor, although I can't remember, but he would often say, "Okay, you have to have the availability, the gifting and the opportunity, and you need all three to pursue something." I look for the big three to affirm what I'm thinking about. God, husband, friends and family, that are in real life. Then I also think through those three things like, "Well, I might have the availability and opportunity, but I'm not good at it. I'm not talented at all. It would actually be really bad for me to enter into that." So, maybe that means that's not somewhere for me to be.
Emily: Another thing when I'm thinking about God's will, and we talk about this a lot is, needing to cultivate wisdom. Wisdom is fearing the Lord. It's understanding principles from the Bible and trying to figure out how they apply to our real-life situation. There's knowledge like, "Okay, I read these things” and then there's the real-life boots on the ground, “I understand how this translates into real life.” I think this takes a lot of time.
I think it takes discipleship. I think it takes sitting under good preaching and teaching week after week. It's having good mentors and counselors and reading good books and praying and crying out to God. There's that, of course, very reassuring verse, what is it in? Is it in James? It's like, "Anybody who needs wisdom, ask." We should be asking God, "How do I take the truth of your word and apply it to my situation?" This is a really critical piece for understanding his will.
Laura: Another one is walking in the Spirit. This is something where I used to hear people always say, "Watch where God is working, and go there." It kind of bothered me, I'm not going to lie, because what I thought it indicated, "Well, is God not working in my life? The Spirit is not in me?" No.l It feels very anti-biblical. But, as I thought through what people are really meaning by walking in the Spirit or watching where God is working, I think what it actually means is, to see that sometimes God is opening opportunities for my sanctification, or for me to hone some of those things that I need to work on by walking in his will, by the power of the Holy Spirit.
For example, I think sometimes it's like, I don't know, I get frustrated with my kiddos and what I want to do is to react in anger, but instead I see, "No, this is a moment where I can obey God. I can pursue holiness and speak to them in kindness." Or I see somebody who is homeless on the side of the road and I feel that prompting in my spirit, and I happen to have a gift card in my car, or I happen to have cash. Okay, great. There's an opportunity here for me to walk in the Spirit. It's simply to have these sanctified eyes to see the world and its needs through the eyes of Christ.
This, for me, has been to work on having compassion, and mercy, and offering justice, and defense, and even being willing to risk my reputation, or my time, or my energy, so that another may know Christ.
Emily: For me, this is similar to what you're saying, very much trying to bring this into whatever God has placed in front of me. A couple of years ago, I started praying in the morning that God would help me to see the good works that he has for me to walk in them. That helps me look at each situation where maybe an unexpected text message comes up, or my child asks me for something, or has a funny question that I'm like, "Hmm, that's interesting." Instead of just blowing past that, or just ignoring it, to say, this may be part of the way that God wants me to love somebody else today in this specific situation.
Maybe instead of just telling my child like, "Nope, I’ve got another agenda and I've got to stay on this certain path,” to tune into that, and realize, "Oh, maybe I should press in here. Or maybe this should prompt me to get online and see if I can get a book that can help answer some of those questions.” I can participate in the work that God is doing in their heart. I don't know if that makes sense, but it's just having that lens on as I'm going throughout my day.
Laura: The reality is that in motherhood, interruption is our ministry. Those interruptions, I totally know what you're saying, where I feel like, this is not what I had for my day, or this is not what I had planned, but more often than not, when those interruptions happen, I realize, “that was a moment of real fruit for me,” or perhaps just a way to love another. It meant a ton and maybe it didn't even take a lot of my own time, but that’s what it means to walk in the spirit and to be sensitive and recognize that the Holy Spirit is living and active in you.
There are opportunities that the Lord is throwing over and over again for you to respond rightly. These are all chances for you to grow in holiness, and in obedience, and to walk in God's will. That has been a huge game changer for me, because I start to live my life very differently than when previously I was pretty self-focused and I still get that way.
Emily: Yes, it's like those moments, at the end of the day before dinner. I thought we were going to outgrow this season, where between 3:00 to 5:00 or 3:00 to 7:00 PM or whatever, it was really hard—
Laura: The witching hour?
[laughs]
Emily: —but it's still hard just in different ways. It's in those moments for me thinking, "Okay, what is God's will for me right now?"
My son with special needs is having a meltdown and is throwing books everywhere. My older kids are running around outside somewhere and I'm trying to get them in the house, my toddler daughter is crying and wants another cup of milk.
I need to think, “Okay. God's will for me right now is patience, is love, is joy, is thanksgiving, is rejoicing, is praying,” and knowing that, it's a lot more about who I am in that moment, than whether or not I have my kids come in to watch a show, or I let them play outside for another 15 minutes, or whether I get my daughter a cup of milk. Yes, those decisions matter, but it's way more about how I'm going to respond and look like Christ in that moment. That's, to me, where the battle of obedience is.
Laura: Well, I like what you said there, about what God cares about is who I'm becoming or who I am in that moment. I think that's really, really true. I do think, and I think you would agree, Em, that God sometimes does work in really big ways. He has definitely worked in signs and wonders in the past. I think there are times where God really disrupts people's lives and there are massive changes for them that they are to respond to. But, more often than not, when we're talking about just the ordinary believer in 2021, it's probably more about living faithfully in your own home and making wise decisions through the counsel of others and according to God's word. That's what faithfulness looks like. That's what living into God's will looks like.
Emily: Yes. I think I've been seeing a lot of this more resonating online as people are going, "Hey, how are we going to live as Christians right now? What's the radical thing we're supposed to do?" Some of us may be called to do outwardly radical things, but you want to be radical? Invest faithfully in your children. Love your family, go to church every week. Have a real life community of people that you invest in, that you love on. Continue to live like a Christian, that is radical in our world. That's radical.
Laura: Before we close, I think there's only one other thing that I just wanted to mention, which was recognizing that your conscience has some differences from the Holy Spirit. Your conscience is your moral compass. It's what you naturally feel is right and wrong. The Holy Spirit living inside of you is actually the thing that's transforming you to do the work of Christ. It could be that your conscience isn't necessarily calibrated correctly.
Emily and I did a lot of deep work on the conscience a couple of years ago. I would actually just really point you to that show that we talked about with personal conscience. We will link it in the show notes, but if you don't feel like you really understand the difference between the Holy Spirit and conscience because they both feel like conviction at times. It can be really confusing. It's a complicated topic at some level. I would just implore you to go listen to that show and to start to understand where there are some differences between those two things and where perhaps you might be able to gain some freedom that you didn't feel prior, or you might even feel more conviction if you recalibrate that conscience.
Emily: I think a lot of the things we've been talking about in terms of God's will today is, a little bit assuming that we're talking about grey areas, that we're talking about decisions that could go one way or the other. They're a little bit morally neutral, or they a little bit depend on your circumstances, or where you're at in life, or all of those different things. But, we want to be clear that there are decisions that are explicitly against God's will.
You’ll hear people say, "Well, God is telling me to do this. I just have a real peace about that." If it's something that is clearly disobedient to scripture, God is never going to ask you to disobey something, special just for you, in order to follow his will. It's not in his will to reject his command or to rewrite or to change or to reinterpret. I think those are things we have to be really careful of, that when there is something clear, we don't try to explain it away or get around it or whatnot, but that we really repent and come to the Lord and ask for his help with the Spirit.
Laura: This goes back to the whole, "Love Jesus, do what you want." If you know him truly, deeply, from the word, then you will be able to understand what these differences are, where God's law divides and where it lands and you won't be muddling in between these things. A good word.
Okay. I think that's all we have for today.
Emily: Walk by faith.