Written by T. M. Suffield |
Monday, March 6, 2023
Since materialism wipes out the possibility of ingrained purpose, and we require purpose to live, what we call expressive individualism naturally arises. We kill God and we will become him. When purpose and therefore meaning are self-determined, we fall into crisis. In other words, one thread of our predicament in this strange malaise we call modernity, is the natural result of our changing understanding of what the world around us is.

We live in a world that tells a story about itself: we learn the story as children in school and we imbibe it in our cups as we go about the day. It’s whispered to us by automobiles and tarmac and concrete pillars and we receive it intravenously by the tap our smartphones have placed in our souls.
The story is simple, though its implications and endless poorly written sequels spin themselves out like the very worst of web serials. It goes like this:
This is it.
The world tells us a story that the stuff that we can see is all there is, and that the stuff we can touch is just stuff. If there were a temptation to believe that perhaps that tree was not just a tree, and maybe, possibly its branches might be raised towards… just stop there. There is nothing to be raised towards. How can there be? What you can see and touch is what there is.
If we were tempted to believe that beauty has a source, that somewhere outside of the stuffy cave we find ourselves in there might be a source of the shadows we watch on the wall, the story will swiftly correct us. Because the world has a ruler, a story-teller, who would really prefer we didn’t consider his existence, or that for most of Christian history we have referred to this Prince of the ‘Air’ who twists stories like smoke around our heads as our Adversary. In Hebrew, the Satan.
But this story—which when we’re feeling philosophical we might call materialism, or naturalism—has got its grip on our world. It’s still pretty new, historically speaking, but it has solidified and deepened. We no longer believe in a Cosmos of ordered light, but instead in a Universe that we describe in mechanistic terms. It sounds like a machine.
We are catechised by our machines, so we start to think in their stories. Even for those who know that there is more, those who know that the story of the world is not that there is stuff that decays to dust but that God became dust and all things will be reconciled to him. Even if we know that the beating heart of the Universe is after death, life we still struggle to believe that what we see and touch is more than it appears. We’re steeped in stories that tell us otherwise.
If I, for example, suggested that what we refer to as the ‘laws of physics,’ our observations about the regular nature of the Cosmos’ operations, are most likely overseen by angels, I sound like I need to be sectioned under the Mental Health Act.
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The physical world declares the glory and goodness of God.  Maybe a really practical out working of this is to go out and see, and smell and touch God’s world, to refresh your soul in the sheer expanse of God’s ordering, providing, and caring beyond your suffering.  Not to minimise it, but to remind yourself it is not all pain.  Creation is not unrestrained or disordered chaos.  It is good and God cares.

Suffering shrinks our perspective.  When you stub your toe it feels as if your whole body is crying out in agony.  You’re acutely aware of the throbbing pain so much so that it consumes you.  You aren’t aware of every other system in your body working as they should, its amazing intricacies and order, just the pain in your toe.  Suffering is like that – it shrinks our horizons to just the pain we feel.  It makes it hard to see any good beyond the pain we’re in.  That’s what’s happened to Job and so God in this chapter is opening his eyes to the amazing order and goodness in God’s creation even post fall.  Job wonders is God in control of creation or is it all chaos unchecked, but here God shows him the amazing scale and order in creation.
Every time God asks “Where were you…?”, or “Who marked off…?”, or “Have you ever…?”  Or “Can you…?”  Easy to answer questions.  He’s showing Job that though Job can’t create, mark off, order, bind, or even go to these places or things God has and does.  Every question that invites the answer ‘No, I can’t but you alone LORD can’ is showing Job that his deepest fears about God, those dark whisperings that God isn’t good, isn’t in control, that creation is all chaos and darkness that have begun to wrap their tendrils round his heart aren’t true.
God begins by going back to creation (4-7)and his laying the foundations and marking off the dimensions of the earth, that caused the angels to shout for joy.  The world doesn’t spin off it’s axis or out of its orbit because God ordered it just so.
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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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