What is God’s Will For Me In My Relationship? (How To Know What God Wants)
If you’re in a difficult relationship, one of the big questions on your mind is “What is God’s will for me?”
You want to do what God wants you to do
The problem is that, when you go seeking God’s will from others, you’re getting their narrow understanding about what God’s will is, and unless they have been in a destructive relationship themselves, they won’t have ever looked at the whole counsel or character of God on the topic you are seeking counsel about. Therefore, you are like to get this common advice:
God hates divorce
God wants you to forgive
The Bible says to turn the other cheek
We are to be peacemakers
Wives have a “marital duty” to their husbands
Love covers a multitude of sins
Wives are to submit
But what about when you’ve been doing all that and things still aren’t getting better? Is it God’s will that you keep trying?
Does God Want You To Keep Trying?
Here’s the truth: If you keep trying, you’re essentially playing God - and not just “playing” God, but you’re trying to be better than God. Matthew 10: 24, 25 says “The student is not above the teacher, nor a servant above his master. It is enough for students to be like their teachers, and servants like their masters.”
Why do I say that you are trying to play God? Because you are trying to be kinder, more patient, more forgiving, more faithful, and more committed than God is. You believe that you can work a miracle by loving someone enough. And you could be creating an Ishmael.
But here is what God, your Teacher and Master, is like: He doesn’t stay in relationship with someone who doesn’t continue to draw near to him. He doesn’t chase people down. He comes for us if we’re lost and hurting (like a lost sheep), but if we keep running, he doesn’t chase us down and force us to be with him. [Find out the answer to “What Would Jesus REALLY Do?”]
We see an example of this in Mark 10:21. A wealthy man asks Jesus what he must do to inherit eternal life. When Jesus tells him to keep the commandments and the man says he’s done that, Jesus “looked at him and loved him” and revealed to him the one part of his life that he hadn’t yet surrendered to God, and the man walked away. Jesus did not chase after him, begging him to understand or trying other techniques to get him to love God, or giving him grace or forgiveness. He just let him walk away.
Yet the advice that you get so often is equivalent to telling you that you should try to be better than God: That you are to continue to pursue your spouse, keep trying to help them understand your love, keep trying to draw them close to you, keep forgiving and waiting for them to start returning the love you have for them.
If your spouse is running, if you feel like you’re doing most of the work to keep the relationship together - don’t try to be better than God. God can work in the supernatural realm, but you have to work and live in the natural realm - all you can work with is the reality that is in front of you. You can’t work with what “should” be, you can’t live based on what you hope for, you have to do the natural and leave the “super” up to God. Otherwise, you’re sabotaging God’s ability to work in your relationship because you are trying to do his part!
What you need to know about what others tell you about God’s will
We’re told that we have to forgive
It isn’t true that we have to forgive. Even God doesn’t always forgive. He makes forgiveness available to us, but we only get his forgiveness when we repent. (If God always forgave, the whole world would go to heaven - and you know that doesn’t happen, right?) [Read my full article on forgiveness]
We’re told that God wants us to stay in our marriage
Even God doesn’t stay in a covenant relationship with those who are not faithfully near to him. In Jeremiah 3: 8 God says he “gave faithless Israel her certificate of divorce and sent her away.” [Read my whole article on separation and divorce]. And if you’re feeling like God wouldn’t have put the two of you together if it wasn’t meant to last, read my article on that here.
We’re told “believe the best”
God says to tell the “truth in love” (Ephesians 4: 15). A focus on “believing the best” is often our effort to lie to ourselves and others so as not to have to admit that what’s happening is not good. [Get my FREE eBook on “What’s REALLY the Problem In Your Relationship - And What To Do About It”]
We’re told to stay in it for the kids
God wants you to pass good things on to your children (Deuteronomy 4: 8,9 - “what other nation is so great as to have such righteous decrees and laws as what I am setting before you today? Teach them to your children and to their children after them”). When we stay in a destructive relationship for the “sake” of the kids, we are teaching them that God’s laws/boundaries are meaningless and that we have to tolerate someone’s sin. In 2 Corinthians 11: 20, the apostle Paul chastises people who tolerate sin, saying “you even put up with anyone who enslaves you or exploits you or takes advantage of you or puts on airs or slaps you in the face.” The best thing we can do for the sake of our children is teach them what it looks like to have relational health. [Read my full article on how to help your children]
We believe that the marriage will get worse if we set boundaries
God says that, rather than making things worse, boundaries are the only hope for our marriage. It’s through boundaries that we learn to submit to each other as Ephesians 5: 21 commands us: “Submit to one another out of reverence for Christ” because someone else’s boundaries compel us to give up what we may want in order to respect what is important to someone else. [Read my full article on how boundaries are our only hope]
We’re told to “turn the other cheek”
That blanket command does not effectively reflect the character of God in all situations. Jesus did not always turn the other cheek [get my free resource on What Would Jesus Really Do?] and neither did the apostles.
We believe we have to submit to our elders and authorities
We follow the advice of pastors and mentors as though they somehow know more about God and his will than we do, but Scripture says “the anointing you received from God remains in you, and you do not need anyone to teach you. But as his anointing teaches you about all things and as that anointing is real, remain in him.” If the teaching of an authority figure is not aligned with God’s character, then you are to obey God and not man (Acts 5: 29).
We are told to be peacemakers
Being peacemakers often gets confused with being peacekeepers. Peacekeepers are people who don’t argue, who avoid conflict, who just sit back and pray that others will align themselves with what is right. Unfortunately, that doesn’t create peace. What that creates is a power differential where sin isn’t called out and wrong-doers are not held accountable.
Peacemakers on the other hand are those who call people to account in order to give them an opportunity for repentance. 1 Corinthians 5: 5 says about those who do wrong and do not repent: “rescue him from the pain of his consequences so that he won’t feel rejected.” Ha! No. That’s not what it says. It actually says: “hand this man over to Satan for the destruction of the flesh, so that his spirit may be saved on the day of the Lord.”
You believe that your spouse is a Christian
Does salvation happen when someone raises their hand to receive Jesus in church? Some people believe that if their spouse did this, or if he quotes the Bible, or if he talks about what God wants, that he must be a Christian. But none of those things definitively qualify someone as a Christian. [More on that in my article “Is My Husband A Christian?”]
You’re told not to have expectations of your spouse
This one can be a hard one to discern, because we want to accept others as they are, but if we’re honest, we know that we are let down when the one we love isn’t loving us the way we love them. Good news - even God has expectations, so we can, too. [Read my full article on expectations here]
We’re told that wives need to accommodate their husband’s sexual desires
The Bible reveals that sexual intimacy is to be the fruit of a good relationship - not a requirement if you want a good relationship. [Read my full article entitled “Do I Have To Have Sex With My Husband?”]
We’re told that love covers a multitude of sins and that it is good to overlook an offense
The Bible does say that - but that doesn’t mean that we should overlook all sins. Just as we know that we are sinners and hope that others have enough grace to overlook our sins, we can do the same for others. But Romans 2: 4 says that when someone continues to sin and is unrepentant, they show contempt for God’s patience and are storing up wrath against themselves. Jude 1: 4 says that those people “pervert the grace of our God into a license for immorality” - and that is not something that God wants us to overlook. In fact, James 5: 20 says “Whoever turns a sinner from the error of their way will save them from death and cover over a multitude of sins.” [Read my article on what it means to suffer for doing good)
How Can We Know God’s Will?
When we listen to what others tell us about the Bible and about what they believe about God’s will as derived from the Scriptures, it’s easy to become overly concerned about stepping out of God’s will. Legalism becomes our savior as we are convinced that we have to obey God in order for him to bless us. But Galatians 3: 2 reminds us: “Did you receive the Spirit by the works of the law, or by believing?” The answer is obvious: It is by believing that we receive, not by legalistically trying to please God.
If find yourself becoming afraid of stepping out of God’s will, here’s some comfort and grace for you as you seek his will: "How gracious he will be when you cry for help! As soon as he hears, he will answer you. Whether you turn to the right or to the left, your ears will hear a voice behind you, saying, “This is the way; walk in it” (Isaiah 30: 19, 21).
Whichever way you go, whatever decision you make, as long as you are staying close to God and leaning on him, he will be with you. Whether you go to the left or the right does not matter because whether you turn to the right or the left, God will affirm your decision saying “this is the way.”
Don’t be legalistic about trying to do what God wants. Doing so can make you more focused on what you do than on what God is doing. Matthew 6: 33 says “Seek first his kingdom and his righteousness, and all these things will be given to you as well.” All he wants from you is your heart, because he knows that obedience will follow.
Philippians 1: 9 says that as you gain “knowledge and depth of insight” you will “be able to discern what is best.” This knowledge and depth of insight comes through reading God’s Word where you will “be transformed by the renewing of your mind. Then you will be able to test and approve what God’s will is—his good, pleasing and perfect will” (Romans 12: 2).
Hope isn’t found in our situation changing; it is found in our situation . . .
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