An honest question
Does God have a plan for me? How do I know God’s will?
Key points
- Short answer: God cares about your life, and you matter to him. But God’s will is not a hidden map you have to find.
- What Jesus did: Asked what matters most, Jesus didn’t give a career plan.
- The Lutheran view: Lutherans call it “vocation,” which means calling.
The short answer
God cares about your life, and you matter to him. But God’s will is not a hidden map you have to find. It is a clear calling you can start today. Love God, love your neighbor, and trust him with tomorrow.
What Jesus said and did
Asked what matters most, Jesus didn’t give a career plan. He said: love God with everything you have, and love your neighbor as yourself.
He told anxious people not to worry about tomorrow, and pointed at birds and wildflowers. He said, “I came that they may have life, and may have it abundantly.” And on the hardest night of his life he prayed, “Not my will, but yours, be done.”
A little longer
Many people are taught that God has one exact path for them, and that one wrong choice of job, school or partner puts them outside it. That idea causes a lot of fear, and it isn’t what Jesus taught.
For most decisions, there are several good choices. Choose the one that lets you love the people in front of you, use what you’re good at, and keep your promises. Pray, ask people who know you, and then go.
When life goes somewhere you didn’t plan, God is still there. Christians believe God can bring good even out of the choices we got wrong.
Where Christians disagree
Christians disagree about how detailed God’s plan is. Some believe God has planned every detail of every life. Others believe God gives real freedom and works with our choices. Most agree God’s purposes are good, and that we rarely see them clearly ahead of time.
How Lutherans see it
Lutherans call it “vocation,” which means calling. You serve God right where you are, as a parent, a worker, a neighbor, a friend. Changing a diaper or doing your job honestly is God’s work done through you. You don’t have to find a special calling; you already have several.
Where it is in the Bible
-
Mark 12:28–31 The greatest commandments: love God, love your neighbor.
Read Mark 12:28–31
28 One of the scribes came, and heard them questioning together, and knowing that he had answered them well, asked him, “Which commandment is the greatest of all?” 29 Jesus answered, “The greatest is, ‘Hear, Israel, the Lord our God, the Lord is one: 30 you shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, and with all your soul, and with all your mind, and with all your strength.’ This is the first commandment. 31 The second is like this, ‘You shall love your neighbor as yourself.’ There is no other commandment greater than these.”
World English Bible, public domain. The whole chapter on Free Scripture → · Read in the NRSVue, the ELCA’s standard translation →
-
Matthew 6:25–34 Don’t worry about tomorrow.
Read Matthew 6:25–34
25 Therefore I tell you, don’t be anxious for your life: what you will eat, or what you will drink; nor yet for your body, what you will wear. Isn’t life more than food, and the body more than clothing? 26 See the birds of the sky, that they don’t sow, neither do they reap, nor gather into barns. Your heavenly Father feeds them. Aren’t you of much more value than they? 27 “Which of you, by being anxious, can add one moment to his lifespan? 28 Why are you anxious about clothing? Consider the lilies of the field, how they grow. They don’t toil, neither do they spin, 29 yet I tell you that even Solomon in all his glory was not dressed like one of these. 30 But if God so clothes the grass of the field, which today exists, and tomorrow is thrown into the oven, won’t he much more clothe you, you of little faith? 31 “Therefore don’t be anxious, saying, ‘What will we eat?’, ‘What will we drink?’ or, ‘With what will we be clothed?’ 32 For the Gentiles seek after all these things; for your heavenly Father knows that you need all these things. 33 But seek first God’s Kingdom, and his righteousness; and all these things will be given to you as well. 34 Therefore don’t be anxious for tomorrow, for tomorrow will be anxious for itself. Each day’s own evil is sufficient.
World English Bible, public domain. The whole chapter on Free Scripture → · Read in the NRSVue, the ELCA’s standard translation →
-
Luke 22:39–42 Jesus prays, “Not my will, but yours.”
Read Luke 22:39–42
39 He came out and went, as his custom was, to the Mount of Olives. His disciples also followed him. 40 When he was at the place, he said to them, “Pray that you don’t enter into temptation.” 41 He was withdrawn from them about a stone’s throw, and he knelt down and prayed, 42 saying, “Father, if you are willing, remove this cup from me. Nevertheless, not my will, but yours, be done.”
World English Bible, public domain. The whole chapter on Free Scripture → · Read in the NRSVue, the ELCA’s standard translation →
Where to go next
Other questions people ask
Written by Digital Lutheran Church, a small, free website from the nonprofit Hope for Americans, in the tradition of the ELCA. Bible passages are from the World English Bible.