How do you know God's will for you?

[Garnet2727]

In a thread in GA there was quite a discussion regarding a personal relationship with Jesus and knowing God's will. I'd like to understand how you as a Christian hear God or know that the Holy Spirit is working in you or know God's will for your life.

I hope this makes sense. I'm a little under the weather and not all that coherent at the moment.

 

[TheOriginalWhitehorse]

In a thread in GA there was quite a discussion regarding a personal relationship with Jesus and knowing God's will. I'd like to understand how you as a Christian hear God or know that the Holy Spirit is working in you or know God's will for your life.

I hope this makes sense. I'm a little under the weather and not all that coherent at the moment.

Several ways. The most important is the word of God. God's will is never for us to be in a relationship that He has forbidden, for example. A godly man can tell a godly woman by reading Proverbs 31. That sort of thing.

Also, we pray for God to guide us, to open and close doors according to His will.

 

[Garnet2727]

Thank you Whitehorse. I'm trying understand something else though. What are your personal interactions with God like? What happens when you pray? Has God ever personally told you something?

Again, forgive me if I'm not making sense. But what I'm trying to get to is that personal relationship with Jesus.

 

[TheOriginalWhitehorse]

Thank you Whitehorse. I'm trying understand something else though. What are your personal interactions with God like? What happens when you pray? Has God ever personally told you something?

Again, forgive me if I'm not making sense. But what I'm trying to get to is that personal relationship with Jesus.

Wow. It depends. Yes, prayer for me has been a very intense and powerful thing. Somtimes I say things not knowing why I say them, and God uses them to bring something to pass. I'll ask Him to breathe His will into my heart, and then I breathe it back to Him in prayer.

Usually, the vast majority of the time, when God speaks, He will see to it that I stumble upon a passage in scripture and He'll get my attention. Then sometimes He will reinforce it with other people telling me the same thing through an unrelated incident. Scripture is at the heart of it. But yes. On very rare occasions, I've felt the Lord making something known to me, which of course has to be in alignment with scripture.

 

[Garnet2727]

Thank you very much for sharing that, Whitehorse

 

[TheOriginalWhitehorse]

You're welcome.

 

[Rafael]

I think He speaks to us with life, but most of us never develop the ears of wisdom to hear what He is saying through it. Like Whithorse, though, the Word of God is our anchor to truth and has God's will and commandments for mankind. The personal level is something different for each person, I would have to assume, as we are all different and at different stages of growth in our walk of faith with God.

 

[LegomasterJC]

I have not heard litteral words from God but I have been lead by him and just know what he wants me to do at that particular time (This is not all the time in my life but when I really do just let go of all the junk and just worship Him and let Him lead)
I've also gotten pictures from Him.
There are other ways all of which should be backed up by the Bible, not going against what it teaches.
Words by litterally hearing, seeing visions of words, feeling pains in certain areas when it is not something you normally feel sometimes is a sign that there is someone else in need of prayer in that area...
Prophesy (someone else recieving words from God and passing them on to you)
dreams...

 

[MinDach]

You can hear what God is saying, by being still, by listening for a small voice in your heart, it's a overwhelming feeling of love. He tells us in the Bible about how we are to live. Its up to you what you want to do with your life. He will open doors for us all, it's just up to us if we will go thr that door. One of the Greats Gifts he can give to each of us, is the Gift of Wisdom.

 

[TheOriginalWhitehorse]

When it comes to the personal relationship with God, it's less what we hear and more how God interacts with us. It's bringing our lives in submission to Him and seeing all the good fruit that pours out of it. It's seeing how one act of obedience led to blessing and protection in another seemingly unrelated incident.

If you want to get a good idea of how that works, read the book of Esther. It is a very, very good example, and we see it on a regular basis. It's seeing doors open that we had nothing to do with opening, and finding ourselves bringing healing to others in ways we never dreamed or expected. It's saying something without knowing why, and watching something come to pass as a result.

It's the peace that comes with knowing we are forgiven. Not hoping, not choosing to believe, not finding what suits us, but just knowing, and seeing the results of that.

It's praying and seeing powerful response to that prayer even though we are mere fallen creatures. And God chose to listen. It's feeling comfort in hard times, and while the rest of the world is cursing God, you're praising Him and enjoying His comfort and fellowship. It's being able to do what is right when surrounded with people who treat you wrong. It's having patience with someone trying to play games with you, manipulate you or annoy you, and seeing God make things right afterward.

It's seeing His guidance and love, and knowing that all the things you forsake to live in Him were only loss to you anyway, and being able to see that your sacrifices were no sacrifices at all, but portals of every good thing and knowing that God is good, and He loves you.

Etc.

 

[Brother Charlie]

I dont know God's will

 

[Garnet2727]

I *think* what I'm reading is that it really is a combination of things. The Word, prayer, stillness and submission just to name a few. It also looks to me that God manifests Himself differently in each believer's life?

 

[Garnet2727]

I dont know God's will

I'm afraid that you may be reacting to misstatement on my part. I know that I've often been told that God's will is unfathomable. But I've also been told that believers have a personal relationship with Jesus.

Is that true for you?

 

[Brother Charlie]

I'm afraid that you may be reacting to misstatement on my part. I know that I've often been told that God's will is unfathomable. But I've also been told that believers have a personal relationship with Jesus.

Is that true for you?

yes, but I still dont know God's will...no one does, at least in this life. Man can't even come close to understanding God's creations, much less God himself

 

[Garnet2727]

Thank you for your answer, Brother Charlie. I hope at least that you have peace in your beliefs?

 

[Brother Charlie]

Thank you for your answer, Brother Charlie. I hope at least that you have peace in your beliefs?

Oh yes, I have peace. I know enough that I can place enough hope in God for eternal life and salvation from sins. But other than that, I know that I know nothing and that all the wisdom that man may accumulate by his own will really only end at his death. So the saying "learning only ends at death" really is pointless because death brings all learning to nothing. I have seen enough to confirm my belief in the existance of God, and that Christianity is correct, and that the Catholic Church contains the fulness of truth, and thats all I need to know. It does give you peace to come to terms with reality, that you can never know the truth of existance apart from the basics which come to us by revelation from the divine.

Pax Christi,
Charlie

 

[Garnet2727]

This is a good thing then. What is important to me is not so much what people believe but that they have peace in their lives and joy in between the hard times.

 

[Brother Charlie]

This is a good thing then. What is important to me is not so much what people believe but that they have peace in their lives and joy in between the hard times.

You dont believe that it is important for religion to have some objective truth to it? If Christianity wasnt true, if Christ wasnt Creator, Savior, and Pantocrator, then I wouldnt be Christian. Im looking not so much for a spiritual high than for eternal life, and if that means that this life will be miserable rather than happy, so be it.

 

[Garnet2727]

I didn't mean that at all. And I surely don't want to turn this into a debate. I'm not questioning your beliefs, not at all. Nor did I mean to imply that your beliefs are some kind of acid trip. All I meant is that each person goes through rough times in life. And I'm glad for you that you have found your truth and your comfort.

I would like to understand more about how your relationship with God works. That's all. And certainly not in a mean or diminishing way.

 

[Brother Charlie]

I didn't mean that at all. And I surely don't want to turn this into a debate. I'm not questioning your beliefs, not at all. Nor did I mean to imply that your beliefs are some kind of acid trip. All I meant is that each person goes through rough times in life. And I'm glad for you that you have found your truth and your comfort.

Thank you. Just realize that I believe that you and everyone else will face the same judgment that I am, even if you dont think you are.

I would like to understand more about how your relationship with God works. That's all. And certainly not in a mean or diminishing way.

You have just asked a huge question. Life is all about man's relationship with God, whether he chooses to accept him or reject him every moment of his life. God interacts with us through the things that are made, including sacraments, other people, or just life's situations. Man can choose to interact with God, the highest form of this being contemplative prayer and adoration. God is with us at all times, he sustatains our existance, and he is everywhere but he is nowhere. We walk by the eyes of faith in this life, but in the coming life we will see him as he is, face to face. We must have the faith and trust of a small child, and we must humble ourselves, like the children of God that we are. We, as children of God, cannot do anything on our own without our almighty father.
At that time the disciples approached Jesus and said, "Who is the greatest in the kingdom of heaven?" He called a child over, placed it in their midst,
and said, "Amen, I say to you, unless you turn and become like children, 3 you will not enter the kingdom of heaven. Whoever humbles himself like this child is the greatest in the kingdom of heaven. And whoever receives one child such as this in my name receives me. Matthew 18.1-5
Man's interaction with God also comes about in rejecting evil. The worst thing to do is to deny one's own faults. There exists a force of evil in the world, and it seduces man's souls, leading them into eternal damnation. But, EVERYONE has the oppurtunity presented by Christ's salvic work to be freed from his sins.