When we don’t know what to do, when we fail to do the right thing, when we freeze in fear over making a decision, we can be at peace because Christ has already interceded for us through his perfectly obedient life lived for us and perfect sacrificial death on our behalf. He also gave us his Spirit who is at work in us, helping us to desire wisdom, teaching us the way of wisdom through the Word, and enabling us to walk in it. 

Have you ever had to make an important decision and felt stuck as to what to do? Perhaps you stood at a crossroads with two paths before you, and you didn’t know which one to take.
You may have asked yourself questions like, Do I take this job or that job? Sell the house or stay? Trust the doctor or get a second opinion? Serve in this ministry or another? Send our children to this or that school? Have our parents move in or find them alternative living arrangements?
When my thyroid biopsy came back as inconclusive, the doctor recommended surgery. (I wrote about that here). He said it was the only way to know for certain whether the growth was cancerous or not. He gave me numbers and statistics (none of which I understood) and said we could remove the growth or wait and see, but he recommended surgery. I had a decision to make. Do I have the surgery? Or do I test and retest and wait and see? Do I trust the numbers and statistics? Do I trust the doctor?
I don’t know about you, but when I have a decision to make, my mind is consumed with it. It vacillates back and forth between the options. It’s all I can think about. I worry and fret and mull over it. I lie awake at night unable to sleep. I consider all the potential consequences to the choices. What I want most of all is for a clear answer to step up and knock me on the head. Because what I really fear is making the wrong choice.
And so I wondered, what is God’s will in this? What does he want me to do?
How are God’s will and making decisions related to each other?
Theologians often refer to God’s will in terms of his sovereign (decretive) will and his preceptive (or revealed) will. God’s sovereign will refers to the fact that he ordains all things. Everything is under his control, including every detail of our lives. Nothing can or will happen outside of his will. He is never surprised or taken off guard by what happens. Whatever choice we make, we can be sure it is God’s will.

The lot is cast into the lap, but its every decision is from the LORD. (Prov. 16:33)

We don’t know God’s sovereign will.

The secret things belong to the LORD our God, but the things that are revealed belong to us and to our children forever, that we may do all the words of this law. (Deut. 29:29)

We don’t know his plan for us for tomorrow, next week, or next year. His secret will is not for us to know. Yet, as believers, we can take great comfort in the doctrine of God’s sovereignty. That’s because not only is God sovereign, but he is also our good Father who loves us. He always does what is right and good for us. Whatever decisions we make, we can be assured that God will use it for our good and his glory (Rom. 8:28-29).
God’s preceptive will is the will that God wants us to know. Everything we need to know for living in this world is written in those pages. There’s no missing information we have to seek out in mysterious unknown places. It’s not hidden somewhere—like in a scavenger hunt—and we just have to find it. It’s all there.
The Bible teaches us what is sinful and what is not. It tells us the purpose for our life: to glorify God. It tells us how to treat others, how to steward what he has provided, how to love our family, how to live and work and rest. Most of all, the Bible shows us our greatest need—redemption from sin—and reveals our great Savior, whose life, death, and resurrection are sufficient to free us from sin and enable us to live in righteousness.
God’s word also teaches us about the Spirit who lives within us, producing the fruit of holiness and helping us to daily put sin to death. Ultimately, God’s will for our life is that we grow in holiness—that we become more like Christ.
When we struggle with making a decision and ask, “What is God’s will in this?” often we want to know what pleases God—what he desires from us. We want his direction. We want to know if he desires us to choose A over B or B over A.
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Here we have an inkling of the great obstacle facing western Christianity. How clever the evil one is; he penetrates the political, sexual morality, and scientific realms in order to blind and enslave mankind. Sadly, the Church itself does not stand unscathed in this attack. Fortunately, there is power to the truth, “Greater is He that is in you than he that is in the world.” (I John 4: 4)

To any with the slightest interest in history, we have just passed through perhaps one of the most tumultuous history-making days of this century. To observe the dismantling of Communism (Marxist-Leninist style) around the world, almost without a shot being fired, is both awesome and baffling at the same time. To the amateur historian, it is either the most remarkable and miraculous event to take place or it is the greatest deception ever yet to be played out on the human race. Only time will reveal what is the truth behind this seemingly crumbling empire. What a comfort to know that God knows.
As our attention shifts from Eastern Europe to Communist China, Cuba, and Korea, we can only wonder what the future holds for these nations. More importantly, we should be certain as Christians to turn our eyes upon Jesus, trusting Him to forge ahead with His wonderful and merciful plan of redemption for all peoples in such days as these. If Communism is truly passing, the vacuum must be filled with something. Western civilization, with its permissive, pornographic, violent, drug-hallucinating societies, can only shudder at the possibilities.
True students of the Word of God and of prophecy know that the only light flashed on the future indicates ominous, evil days before the end comes and our Savior returns in glory. In all our wonder and elation, it behooves us to be wary, perhaps even trembling, as to what great evil crouches at the threshold of the future to rise next. If ever there were days when Christians should pray without ceasing, those days are now! Next to being a student of Scripture, being a student of history provides insights which both infidel and ignorant lack. The one reveals the will of God, and the other the will to power of various evil men.
Paul Johnson, an insightful and investigative British historian, offers perceptive clues as to from where modern history is coming to where it is advancing. He notes that “The nineteenth century saw the climax of the philosophy of personal responsibility—the notion that each of us is individually accountable for our actions—which was the joint heritage of Judeo-Christianity and the classical world.” According to him, “the impact of relativity was powerful because it coincided with the public reception of Freudianism. “Marx, Freud, Einstein – all conveyed the same message in the 1920s: the world was not what it seemed. . . Moreover, Marxist and Freudian analysis combined to under-mine, in their different ways, the highly developed sense of personal responsibility and of the duty towards a settled objectively true moral code, which was at the centre of nineteenth century European civilization.”
Here we have an inkling of the great obstacle facing western Christianity. How clever the evil one is; he penetrates the political, sexual morality, and scientific realms in order to blind and enslave mankind. Sadly, the Church itself does not stand unscathed in this attack. Fortunately, there is power to the truth, “Greater is He that is in you than he that is in the world.” (I John 4: 4)
Even as we gapingly watch the dismantling of Communism, we reside in the midst of the dismantling of the moral moorings of our own society and of the impact of Christianity on society. It has proceeded so cautiously that some of us are just now waking up to the fact that we are in hot water (boiling water at that)! Do any of us recoil with pain at the anti-Christian, anti-God environment in which we live? The only way the Church of Jesus Christ can advance in the hellish nightmare into which we have slipped in this century is to stand firm in our trust in God, to press on to holiness of life, and to proclaim release to those still in chains of bondage. Let us give heed to the words of Peter: “Be self-controlled and alert. Your enemy the devil prowls around like a roaring lion for someone to devour. Resist him, standing firm in the faith, because you know that your brothers throughout the world are undergoing the same kind of sufferings.” (I Peter 5: 8,9)
Helen Louise Herndon is a member of Central Presbyterian Church (EPC) in St. Louis, Missouri. She is freelance writer and served as a missionary to the Arab/Muslim world in France and North Africa; this article originally appeared in October 1991 in her church newsletter.

God means for us to know him, serve him, enjoy him, and become like him as a part of Christ’s body. The more isolated we become, the more we cut ourselves off from the fountains of his grace, mercy, and guidance.

Whoever isolates himself seeks his own desire; he breaks out against all sound judgment. (Proverbs 18:1)
In March of 1876, Alexander Graham Bell made the first-ever phone call, which, in time, came to dramatically transform how we relate to one another. On the surface, the communication revolution has seemed to render isolation something of an endangered species — we’re more connected than ever, right? And yet one wonders if isolation eventually mutated into something more subtle and yet equally dangerous (perhaps even more dangerous for being subtle). At least one prominent sociologist fears that’s the case:
We are lonely but fearful of intimacy. Digital connections and the sociable robot may offer the illusion of companionship without the demands of friendship. Our networked life allows us to hide from each other, even as we are tethered to each other. We’d rather text than talk. (Sherry Turkle, Alone Together, 1)
Or, as the subtitle of her book says, “We expect more from technology and less from each other.” And whenever we expect less of each other, we inevitably drift further and further from each other, leaving us as isolated (or more) as the lonely man before the advent of the telephone.
What Kind of Isolation?
Some may read the last few paragraphs and quietly envy a time when no one called, emailed, texted, or (worst of all?) left a voicemail. A life with less people actually might sound kind of appealing. You may struggle to relate to the possible dangers of isolation. Wisdom, however, knows the hazards hiding in the shadows of our seclusion: “Whoever isolates himself seeks his own desire; he breaks out against all sound judgment” (Proverbs 18:1).
What kind of isolation did the wise man have in mind? The next verse gives us a clearer picture:
A fool takes no pleasure in understandingbut only in expressing his opinion. (Proverbs 18:2)
He doesn’t want to hear what others think; he only wants someone to hear what he thinks. This strikes a major nerve in the book of Proverbs. As this wise father prepares his son for the realities of life in this wild and menacing world, he wants him to see that some of the greatest threats are stowaways, striking from within. He warns him, in particular, about the ruinous power of unchecked pride.
Be not wise in your own eyes;fear the Lord, and turn away from evil (Proverbs 3:7).
Do you see a man who is wise in his own eyes?There is more hope for a fool than for him (Proverbs 26:12).
There is a way that seems right to a man,but its end is the way to death (Proverbs 14:12).
The proud man, we learn, breaks out against all judgment because he invites destruction on himself. Arrogance makes his isolation dangerous: I don’t spend more time with other people because I don’t need other people — because I know better than other people. This pride distinguishes isolation from the virtues of solitude, which God encourages again and again (Psalm 46:10; Matthew 6:6; Mark 1:35).
The ways that lead to death are the ways we choose for ourselves while refusing meaningful community — relationships marked by consistent honesty, counsel, correction, and encouragement.
Alone with Our Desires
What draws us into the spiritual shadows of isolation? Our own selfish desires. “Whoever isolates himself seeks his own desire.” Whenever someone leaves or avoids the community he needs, he has been lured away by sinful desires — desires for privacy or autonomy, for comfort or ease, for money or sex, even for vindication or vengeance. At root, it’s our desires that divide and isolate us:
What causes quarrels and what causes fights among you? Is it not this, that your passions are at war within you? You desire and do not have, so you murder. You covet and cannot obtain, so you fight and quarrel (James 4:1–2).
The desires that keep us from one another are varied, but they’re all rooted in selfish discontentment: We want and do not have, so we excuse ourselves from love — either by attacking one another or by abandoning one another. Our desires, Scripture says, are what isolate and undo us (Jude 1:18–19). Consider, for instance, the lazy man:
The desire of the sluggard kills him,for his hands refuse to labor.All day long he craves and craves,but the righteous gives and does not hold back (Proverbs 21:25–26).
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