Here’s is a rather lengthy quote from Dr. Bruce Waltke’s book Finding the Will of God: A Pagan Notion?
Far too many Christians rely on faulty logic to divine the will of God. Their thinking goes like this: “God has a plan, and therefore He intends that I find it.” That is a non sequitur, a conclusion that cannot logically follow the premise. Simply because God has a plan does not mean that He necessarily has any intention of sharing it with you; as a matter of fact the message of Job is in part that the Lord in His sovereignty may allow terrible things to happen to you, and you may never know why. In North America we live in such safe and scheduled lives that we come to presume that God will act “fairly” toward us. Then when some young person dies in a trafic accident we cry, “Unfair! How could a loving and just God allow this to happen? This is an excellent question, and one that Job asked, but he was never given the sort of answer he expected. However, if we contrast our lives with those of Christians living in sections of Africa that have experienced racial strife or who have gone through severe drought, we begin to remember that there is no guarantee of “fairness” in Scripture this side of the grave…
I have observed Christians making major decisions based upon the faulty notion that God has a hidden will He wants them to discover, and it has often led to disaster. One couple I know quit their jobs and went into a specialized ministry based on a “hunch” that God wanted them to make a change…
Too many people have…used the “hunch” method to rationalize poor decisions or excuse their carnal living…
Not only is the logic of many Christians faulty, but their exegesis is terrible. Countless times I have heard people quote Proverbs 3: 5-6 as a basis for divining God’s will: “Trust in the LORD with all thine heart, and lean not unto thine own understanding. In all thy ways acknowledge him, and he shall direct thy paths” (KJV). Many people read the word “direct” and assume that this verse means God will give them special direction in the everyday decisions of life. But the Hebrew word literally means to “go straight,” so a sound exegesis reveals that if you trust God you will not go outside the bounds of what the book of Proverbs teaches. When it says that “he shall direct thy paths” it does not mean that God will offer you special revelation, but that He will make your track right because you are living your life in accordance with the words of Proverbs. Using a verse as a magic incantation does not mean that God is obliged to hand you the answer to your problem. This is simply not true to the Christian experience. Receiving a message from God is nearly always in conjunction with having a loving heart toward God. The Spirit of God in you life, together with the influence of the Word, illuminates the thoughts of the Lord. As you put God’s Word into practice, He establishes your thoughts so that you can participate in His eternal plan… Any time you take the Bible out of context you destroy the intent of God’s Word. That’s why you cannot take instances of special revelation and make them normative for the Chrsitian experience. [1]
1. Taken from Finding the Will of God: A Pagan Notion? by Bruce K. Waltke [Wm. B. Eerdmans Publishing Co: Grand Rapids 2002 and by Regent College Publishing: Vancouver, B.C. pp 15-18]
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