Can You Determine the Will of God for Specific Events in Your Life?

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Skipper80 said:

"Some do say they hear the trivial. Perhaps so, sometimes God may just want to fellowship with you"

By "hear" do you mean someone can literally hear God saying private things to them in their ear?

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Ive never heard an audible voice. Most believe that is extremely rare. Most guidance comes from within. Some teach it is the Holy Spirit revealing things to our human (born again) spirit. For me it occurs usually when i am closest to God. During worship or just listening for God in silence. Revelation too comes when one is reading the word. God talks in many ways such as visions, words from others and even our circumstances.

Skipper80 said:

You attribute success to being aligned to the will of god. Is being rich and wealthy a sign of being aligned to God's will?

Another question is: how does one know they are not acting on emotional inclination rather than hearing the will of God?
I don't think God reveals Himself through personal experience. If someone believes that, then they are saying that the Bible is not sufficient to understand God. God has revealed Himself sufficiently throughout the Bible. To say otherwise is heresy.

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Heresy? Seems extreme to suggest that.

Skipper80 said:

You attribute success to being aligned to the will of god. Is being rich and wealthy a sign of being aligned to God's will?

Another question is: how does one know they are not acting on emotional inclination rather than hearing the will of God?
I don't think God reveals Himself through personal experience. If someone believes that, then they are saying that the Bible is not sufficient to understand God. God has revealed Himself sufficiently throughout the Bible. To say otherwise is heresy.

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Success in God to me is defined by the amount if love and compassion that you can show to others. In other words you increse in being like Jesus. Lots of sinners are rich and wealthy.
But yes God does give personal exoeriences. One i failed to touch on is the conviction of the Holy Spirit. Here the Holy Spirit may point out personal wrongoing. Sins and specific instances of unforgiveness or judgment. Calling into the ministry too is personal revelation. "The human spirit is the lamp of the LORD that sheds light on one’s inmost being." Consider too that "faith comes by hearing, hearing by the word of God. The word there is rhema (spoken word) not logos. Why would anyone go into ministry, go to a mission field or even try a business or occupation without some assurance from God? If its not done in faith its a sin. It is not about being fortunate or random for major life decisions, its about connecting to God and finding his guidance. This is not heresy it is normal communication. I am not saying everday, but if you seek God on a matter he will generally respond. Paul for instance sought God to remive his thorn in the flesh on three occasiins. The answer was no.

Can it just be our emotions? Yes, especially if one has little discernment.
Heb 5:14 "But strong meat belongeth to them that are of full age, even those who by reason of use have their senses exercised to discern both good and evil."
I would suggest the sheep hear his voice and every Christian can have their senses trained.

If I was going to give one clear instance of God "guiding me", it was the push I experienced to join the church.

When I was young, I had a bit of Sunday School at a local Presbyterian Church. And that was about it - I was made to go by my parents, and I never really felt a part of it. But I did have that experience. My parents didn't go to church, and my father was atheist, although baptised Catholic. So there was no family background.

Fast forward to 1982 and I was out of work, going through a divorce, going to sell the house I was trying to pay off, and I had the flu.

There wasn't much I could do. Normally I don't watch sport, but the Commonweatlth Games were on in Brisbane which is my home town. With nothing else to do I watched the games on television. But as I did so, this persistent image of the Presbyterian Church where I'd gone to Sunday School about 16 or so years earlier kept intruding on my mind. It was very persistent and didn't go away.

Since I'd gotten to rock bottom, I thought there had to be more to life than this, so I went back to that church. A couple of months later I decded to become Christian.

And that was when I met the pastor who had a great deal of influence on my Christian development.

My father had predicted I'd meet him when he turned up in my room the night he died in January 1979, nearly four years earlier. I was an atheist as stated but he said "You'll become a Christian ... You'll meet a pastor. You'll think he's great, but all he'll do is discourage you even more!"

It turned out the Presbyterian pastor (ex-Methodist - so he wasn't Calvinist) was the man my father could foresee me crossing tracks with a few yeares in the future (my father was shown a few future events that night, some of them pretty dire).

The pastor did discourage me, for which he apologised later, but I learnt a lot from him. He also predicted I'd become Catholic down the track, amongst a number of other things, some of which have happened already.

But it was the persistent image of the Sunday School Church which pushed me over the line. It was something I could relate to from past experience to at that time.

Normally I don't watch sport, but the Commonweatlth Games were on in Brisbane which is my home town.

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From my post above ... this is incidental, but a young lady named Tracey Wickham was making waves in the swimming pool in the 1982 Games.

She won gold in the 400 m and 800 m freestyle at the 1982 Commonwealth Games, where she took the Athletes Oath at the Opening Ceremony. Her gold medal for the 400 m was presented to her by Queen Elizabeth II and Wickham retired from swimming immediately afterwards.

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But one of the pastor's predictions for her (before he died himself in 1992) was that she would "... go through a terrible time..." She did, including losing her teenage daughter to cancer, and some failed relationships. I've got her autobiography "Treading Water" somewhere but I haven't gotten around to reading it.

I can't remember how the discussion came up but he did make the comment.

Just an aside - another of his accurate predications.

Skipper80 said:

We know God's will for our life in the broad sense, of course:

1 Timothy 2:3–4 (ESV)
“This is good, and it is pleasing in the sight of God our Savior, who desires all people to be saved and to come to the knowledge of the truth.”

2 Peter 3:9 (NIV)
“The Lord is not slow in keeping his promise... He is patient with you, not wanting anyone to perish, but everyone to come to repentance.”

1 Thessalonians 4:3 (NIV)
“It is God’s will that you should be sanctified: that you should avoid sexual immorality.”

Romans 12:1–2 (ESV)
“...present your bodies as a living sacrifice, holy and acceptable to God... Do not be conformed to this world, but be transformed by the renewal of your mind, that by testing you may discern what is the will of God, what is good and acceptable and perfect.”

1 Thessalonians 5:16–18 (NIV)
“Rejoice always, pray continually, give thanks in all circumstances; for this is God’s will for you in Christ Jesus.”

1 Peter 2:15 (ESV)
“For this is the will of God, that by doing good you should put to silence the ignorance of foolish people.”

Ephesians 2:10 (NIV)
“For we are God’s handiwork, created in Christ Jesus to do good works, which God prepared in advance for us to do.”

Micah 6:8 (NIV)
“He has shown you, O mortal, what is good. And what does the Lord require of you? To act justly and to love mercy and to walk humbly with your God.”

John 13:34–35 (NIV)
“A new command I give you: Love one another. As I have loved you, so you must love one another. By this everyone will know that you are my disciples...”

Matthew 22:37–39 (ESV)
“‘You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind.’ This is the great and first commandment. And a second is like it: You shall love your neighbor as yourself.”

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BUT, WHAT ABOUT SPECIFIC EVENTS IN YOUR LIFE?

Specific daily events that are trivial compared to the concepts and commands in these Bible verses.

For example, if my car broke down as I was going to the coffee shop to get coffee, am I right in saying it was God's will for the car to break down?

What are your thoughts, guys?

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I don't think Gods Will works on that level. It may be just circumstances you find yourself in. Or something you neglected such as servicing the car.

If its a case that you cannot afford a good car or to maintain the current one then that is also I think a matter of circumstance to some degree. But also what priorities you place on having a car.

But in saying that I think we can be wise and navigate the system without becoming to fixed on materialism. By doing some research and getting the cheapest and best car fo its purpose. But if you can afford it then a good car with servicing will minimize this.

If it just happens to be a glitch of some sort in the car that just happened then well thats life sometimes and we if anything are tested to handle theses setbacks which come with lifes unpredictability. Or that we may be aware that we are in a difficult situation and ask God to help us through it.

Basically Christ does tell us to not worry and that God will provide. I think that can mean sometimes that we are really tested and think God has abandoned us and nothing is going right. But even though it may seem that way if we keep trusting God in the end we will be better off.

I think sometimes if not often we don't know Gods Will and we put all sorts of roadblocks and ideas of what that might be for us. But I think Gods Will is there underneath all that thinking in the quiet recess of our mind and sometimes it takes a bit of time to realise it.

"Ok Lord. Your will be done"

Bob Crowley said:

If I was going to give one clear instance of God "guiding me", it was the push I experienced to join the church.

When I was young, I had a bit of Sunday School at a local Presbyterian Church. And that was about it - I was made to go by my parents, and I never really felt a part of it. But I did have that experience. My parents didn't go to church, and my father was atheist, although baptised Catholic. So there was no family background.

Fast forward to 1982 and I was out of work, going through a divorce, going to sell the house I was trying to pay off, and I had the flu.

There wasn't much I could do. Normally I don't watch sport, but the Commonweatlth Games were on in Brisbane which is my home town. With nothing else to do I watched the games on television. But as I did so, this persistent image of the Presbyterian Church where I'd gone to Sunday School about 16 or so years earlier kept intruding on my mind. It was very persistent and didn't go away.

Since I'd gotten to rock bottom, I thought there had to be more to life than this, so I went back to that church. A couple of months later I decded to become Christian.

And that was when I met the pastor who had a great deal of influence on my Christian development.

My father had predicted I'd meet him when he turned up in my room the night he died in January 1979, nearly four years earlier. I was an atheist as stated but he said "You'll become a Christian ... You'll meet a pastor. You'll think he's great, but all he'll do is discourage you even more!"

It turned out the Presbyterian pastor (ex-Methodist - so he wasn't Calvinist) was the man my father could foresee me crossing tracks with a few yeares in the future (my father was shown a few future events that night, some of them pretty dire).

The pastor did discourage me, for which he apologised later, but I learnt a lot from him. He also predicted I'd become Catholic down the track, amongst a number of other things, some of which have happened already.

But it was the persistent image of the Sunday School Church which pushed me over the line. It was something I could relate to from past experience to at that time.

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Thanks for sharing all of that. Sounds like you father has been accurate. I would be cautious though to think that your path is set in stone. Negative events can especially be prayed about and often derailed.

Skipper80 said:

how does one know they are not acting on emotional inclination rather than hearing the will of God?

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It helps to know that it is possible for us to fool ourselves. And trust God to make us able to know His voice and be wise to what isn't.

And God does not only talk to us to have us knowing His will. Yes, He does speak personally to people. But, of course, He uses His word.

Also, we have how God works in our wills and our actions to get us to do what is for His good pleasure >

"for it is God who works in you both to will and to do for His good pleasure." (Philippians 2:13)

So, my opinion is that knowing God's will includes submitting to Him in us working our willing and our doing. This is basic, whether He first talks to us or gives us scripture, or simply works us to do what He desires.

And at every moment there is what God wants with us. So, this needs to become constant . . . however God corrects and matures us so we are continually so sharing with Him in us.

As our character develops in Jesus, we become submissive to God, like Jesus is submissive to our Father. Jesus growing in us shares with us, in our character, so we are submissive like Jesus, in our character.

And Hebrews 12:4-14 talks about how God our Heavenly Father is guaranteed to personally correct every one of His children. This is a guarantee . . . as it is written >

"But if you are without chastening, of which all have become partakers, then you are illegitimate and not children." (Hebrews 12:8)

And in the next verse we are commanded and encouraged to actively seek our Father for how He alone is able to truly correct our character so we are submissive like Jesus and loving like Jesus who is growing in us >

"Furthermore, we have had human fathers who corrected us, and we paid them respect. Shall we not much more readily be in subjection to the Father of spirits and live?" (Hebrews 12:9)

God is the One who works in us to get us to do all He desires; so-o-o . . . trust Him to do this in us. Depend on Him.

And, like I mean, this does not mean only to hear from God and read what He wants; but this includes how God in us personally works, changing our character to become holy the way He is holy in love. And with this we discover more and better than we could try to get ourselves to do, and certainly more and better than we can now understand His word to mean.

So, whatever He says and whatever we read > if it is God, this needs to include how God in us does with us what He means, along with how He coordinates people and things to go with His will for us. The discovering is included in His communication! deeper than words

Can You Determine the Will of God for Specific Events in Your Life?​

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For years I heard Christians saying, "the Lord has a plan for your life", yet I was never able to find it.
I spent many more years wondering if God's "perfect plan" for my life included M.E (18 years) and unemployment (almost as long.)
I have come to the conclusion that God doesn't micro manage my life; he just wants me to serve him in whatever comes along, and be ready to follow if he leads me to pastures new.

Paul tells us, "whatever you do, work at it with all your heart, as working for the Lord." Colossians 3:23.

Skipper80 said:

For example, if my car broke down as I was going to the coffee shop to get coffee, am I right in saying it was God's will for the car to break down?

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No.
If your car breaks down it it because there is something wrong with your car/you are out of petrol.

There have been some events in my life where I know it was God's will.

I was led to live a life of celibacy. When it is your will, you have to restraint yourself. But, when there isn't lust, and there isn't loneliness, I can say it is God's will because He canceled them out. So God's will would be natural occurrence, rather than a forcement.
On my own I would not have the strength to do this. And neither would I had enough wisdom to be with the right woman. So, the Lord saved from my mistakes.

He also saved from various other sins. I think that when you are repulsed by sin, and you react to sin in a certain way, then that is the Spirit reacting. I can feel evil. Whether it is a place or a person, I just know. And what it feels like when you are near such person or place, is similar to being sick; like your body is weak, and you feel faint. Most of things I stayed away from were based on this, even when I very young and did not know good from bad. To realize that what I stayed away from, was actually very bad for me, just that I did not knew at the time.

Sometimes I get my answers from God through dreams, visions, and sometimes even voices. When I ask questions, sometimes the Lord answers me in one of these forms. I get confused, and don't know what to do, and when I intend to make a bad decision, He forbids it, and tells me so. Most of my life, I've led by God, and He protected me.

Some good answers here, and a lot I think we can learn from. I personally feel that discerning the will of God is one of the most misunderstood topics in all of Christianity, and just wish there was more good teaching out there on the subject.

While there are various ways that God can (and does) speak, I think it won't truly work until we are prepared to LISTEN. And that requires us to let go of our own will, to hear things that we may not want to hear. Until and unless we are willing to do that, it will be nearly impossible to hear the voice of God in our life for the day, and then apply it in any real, practical way.

As the song goes, you can’t always get what you want, but you’ll get what you need.... providing you repent of self-determination. God’s Will will then be allowed to work through us in ways we may not understand as we love neighbour and enemy as self, and in return we too will find we may have things fall into place for ourselves, getting what we need or more importantly, wish for others. It’s not complicated unless the world we live in has convinced us it’s all about self, the adversarial way to the Will of God.

Skipper80 said:

BUT, WHAT ABOUT SPECIFIC EVENTS IN YOUR LIFE?

Specific daily events that are trivial compared to the concepts and commands in these Bible verses.

For example, if my car broke down as I was going to the coffee shop to get coffee, am I right in saying it was God's will for the car to break down?

What are your thoughts, guys?

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It's never God's will that things break down. This may be hard to accept and God knows better than we do about the true life cycle cost of everything, but its not God's will that things fail. if you were close to God, he would tell you ahead of time what to fix. or sell it, or buy a new one, etc, etc. .. or maybe.. one day you just get a premonition not to drive it anywyere. walk instead.


i've had prophetic warning given of what can fail. sometimes its my own mind which is skilled at pattern recognition and has the experience to see it. this applies to people to. a friend asked me how many more years i thought he had left to live. i told him 2. --that was about 2 years ago. we had a mutual friend commit suicide over similar life stresses.

I've also got incredibly lucky so to speak. one such example, i had already bought a new set of ball joints for my truck but was neglecting replacing them all. (upper and lower for a 1996 s10). The upper ball joint failed half a mile from home while driving 20mph. i walked home, got the parts, chiseled off the rivets and replaced the upper ball joint on the side of the road.. had it failed while driving 70mph on the interstate the day prior, would have been a bad day.

90% of my unexpected problems are something i already knew ahead of time was going to happen.

not quite the weirdest failure but the most recent one: i was reading a reddit thread on r/demons.. someone was asking why do you follow satan. A lot of people said what amounts to: well he helps me get what i want, and there are no rules. as i'm reading this thread .. the thrust or throwout bearing on my clutch fails. it had always made noise for the past 100,000 miles, but in the past week it had changed, it was... no longer making noise......i knew it needed replaced. but, the failure occurring while reading a reddit thread about lucifer.. what are the odds.


weirdest failure i can't make much sense of:

i have a truck i probably should not have bought. i don't drive it much, its a 1st gen toyota with the 2.7 liter engine. shim over bucket for valve adjustment. underpowered. a 5 liter engine would be more appropriate. Anyhow a while ago for about a solid year there was a woman that would walk up and down the road at a predictable time of day. i always wanted to stop and talk to her. and not entirely because i couldn't figure out if she was a woman or a man. she had an aura of depression perhaps.

well one day i decided to take the valve cover off and measure all the clearances again, etc. i get it back together.. and i forget to tighten the bolt that holds the camshaft sprocket on.

i drive down the road .. and that bolt unscrews but does not fall down into the engine, the gear sprocket slides off the camshaft just enough to turn 90 degrees and of course, engine dies... right in front of that woman, who just walks past as if nothing happened.

i get out of the truck and satan says to me something to the effect of "you wanted to stop and talk to her?"

I fixed it on the side of the road. no valve damage but it didn't run the same. took the head off and ended up re-cutting the valves and lapping all the seats.. which needed to be done anyways.

never seen that woman again...

Skipper80 said:

It's not biblical to say God gives visions nowadays.

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It's not biblical to say that visions only happened in the past and that God cannot work, or speak, this way today.

johansen said:

It's never God's will that things break down.

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God's will does not extend to material things breaking down or wearing out.

johansen said:

if you were close to God, he would tell you ahead of time what to fix. or sell it, or buy a new one, etc, etc. ..

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No.
While it is perfectly possible that God could tell us to drive/walk to a certain place on a certain route, this would likely to be because he wanted us to meet someone, give them a lift, stop somewhere or avoid danger.
God does not micromanage our lives to the extent that he says, "you need to buy new batteries" or "your DVD player needs replacing." Implying that if someone's car broke down it would be because they weren't close to God, is incorrect and unkind.

johansen said:

i've had prophetic warning given of what can fail. sometimes its my own mind which is skilled at pattern recognition and has the experience to see it.

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"Prophetic warnings" are not about things that are going to break down.

johansen said:

I've also got incredibly lucky so to speak. one such example,

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"Incredibly lucky" - so not that you were close to, and listening to, God then?

johansen said:

i drive down the road .. and that bolt unscrews but does not fall down into the engine, the gear sprocket slides off the camshaft just enough to turn 90 degrees and of course, engine dies... right in front of that woman, who just walks past as if nothing happened.

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An example of God's protection.
What woman?

johansen said:

i get out of the truck and satan says to me something to the effect of "you wanted to stop and talk to her?"

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Why would Satan talk to you? Were you so far from God that Satan got in instead?

johansen said:

never seen that woman again...

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Well why would you, if she was a complete stranger?
What had the woman to do with anything?