Understanding God’s will
One of the most frustrating aspects of Christianity is discerning God’s will for our lives. This is especially true for teens who are busy navigating the turbulence of adolescence while trying to make decisions about college, career and relationships. For every person seeking God’s will, there seems to be a book or Web site offering some sort of sure-fire formula on how to know what God wants us to do.
Pastor Kyle Lake strips away the myths and mystery in his very practical book Understanding God’s Will: How to Hack the Equation without Formulas (2004, Relevant Books, ISBN #0-9746942-6-6). Lake points out that there are a lot of misconceptions about God’s will, mainly because there are a lot of misconceptions about God himself. We don’t understand His will because we don’t understand Him. Our society likes to have things spelled out, and we in the Church want quick and easy recipes on how to live our lives. Those formulas might make for best-selling books, but God doesn’t work that way. Lake points out that much of discerning God’s will comes as the result of how we view our relationship to Him, noting that “the God of the scriptures … seems more interested in relationship than performance.” Yet we continue to live our lives as if God cares more about the do’s and don’ts, than about our love for Him.
Lake offers three types of relationships modeled to us by Christ that will help us better define who we are in God: the apprentice (the relationship the disciples had with Christ); fatherhood (the prodigal son as well as the relationship Christ has with His Father); and Kingdom (the relationship between a King and his subjects). Once we better understand who we are in relation to God, we will find it easier to understand His will for our lives. This very readable and practical book is perfect for leading teens into both a better understanding of who God is, as well as discerning His will for their lives.
—Ken Mueller
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