16Rejoice always; 17pray without ceasing; 18in everything give thanks; for this is God’s will for you in Christ Jesus.
Young Christians wrestle with knowing God’s will for their lives. This is seen in their struggle to find a life mate, choose a career, or decide whether to become a missionary. Some bring God’s will into finding a parking space, choosing their clothes in the morning, or deciding whether to attend a social function. Then there is the internal wrestling with God’s sovereign will when tragedy happens, sickness befalls, or financial difficulties arise.
Some aspects of God’s will are laid out clearly in Scripture, and these give us traction for understanding His purposes in areas not clearly revealed. Our passage presents three things to which we should give attention; these ought to supersede and condition all other endeavors to know God’s intentions in our lives.
“Rejoice always.” Easier said than done! Cynics mock this as impossible, as religious talk of an esoteric concept of joy that has little to do with everyday living. However, the apostle Paul was a man of many trials and tribulations. He was beaten, whipped, at times deprived of food and comfort. He is the one writing. And he says this with terse conciseness. There is a joy that we choose to have, based our knowledge of God. The apostle doesn’t elaborate, but we can easily surmise from his other writings that it is a joy hard to describe, and that it comes from focusing not on any present circumstances but on the realities we cannot see with our eyes. The writer of Hebrews puts it this way:
For you showed sympathy to the prisoners and accepted joyfully the seizure of your property, knowing that you have for yourselves a better possession and a lasting one. (Heb. 10:34)
As Paul says to the Romans:
… we look not at the things which are seen, but at the things which are not seen; for the things which are seen are temporal, but the things which are not seen are eternal. (2 Cor 4:18)
So understanding God’s will for our lives begins with setting our eyes higher than any circumstance we face here on this earthly plane. Therein, joy is set free to soar. Apart from this, God’s will remains unknowable and often unacceptable to us. But we know there is a larger picture, and in this we rejoice, for it is in that arena, the unseen, that God’s will plays out.
Lord, I rejoice that Your will deals both with the seen and unseen. I rest in You.
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