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God Prefers Uncertainty

by James Barringer  
4/12/2011 / Christian Living

"What does God want me to do?" That question is asked, prayed, shouted, whined, and wondered a million times a day all over the world. In fact, if I wasn't a Christian, one of the best arguments I would have against our faith is that, for a God whose Bible is so full of do's and don'ts, he seems remarkably uninterested in telling people today exactly what he wants them to do.

Is it possible that's precisely the way he wants it?

Back in Bible times, there actually was a way that you could tell with certainty what God wanted you to do, and you've probably heard of it. It's called casting lots. Someone, often a priest, would take two flat rocks called urim and thummim, which were white on one side and black on the other, and he'd flip them. If they both came up white, that was a yes from God. If they both came up black, it was a no-go. If it was one white and one black, that was the equivalent of the Magic 8-Ball's "Ask Again Later."

All of this sounds like primitive superstition, but God apparently took it very seriously. In Joshua 14, we learn that God specifically commanded Moses to use lots to divide up the Promised Land among the tribes of Israel. In the book of Jonah, we see the casting of lots used to - correctly! - identify Jonah as the one who was responsible for the storm that was ransacking the ship. Proverbs 16:33 even goes so far as to say, "The lot is cast into the lap, but its every decision is from the Lord." Whoa. That means that God oversaw the casting of lots, influencing the outcome by his power, to make sure that people who cast lots knew exactly what God was wanting them to know.

Does this mean you should run out and buy a set of urim and thummim so you can get in on this action? Not exactly. See, the last time in the Bible that lots were cast is found in Acts 1, where the eleven remaining apostles are looking for someone to replace Judas Iscariot. They cast lots after praying, and God chooses Matthias. But in chapter 2, something pivotal happens: the Holy Spirit comes down from heaven to indwell all believers. Once they get the Holy Spirit, they stop casting lots instantly. Even for other situations in Acts that require a crucial decision - the creation of the office of deacon in Acts 6, the ferocious debate of the Jerusalem Council in Acts 15, and Paul's feud with Barnabas later in the same chapter - no one casts lots anymore. The Holy Spirit has rendered that unnecessary.

But you and I, as believers who have been making decisions based on the Holy Spirit for as long as we've been Christians, have to admit that we rarely if ever know exactly what it is that God wants us to do. The experience of following God, which is supposed to be exciting and fun, often ends up tense and frustrating as we seem to be seeking a God who disappears into the mist the moment we get close enough to almost spot him.

The odd thing is that God must prefer it this way. Why else would he have abolished the old system of casting lots and replaced it with the system that you and I struggle under? I think there are two answers, which are sort of interconnected.

The first is that God is not your boss. Your boss tells you what he wants you to do and you do it. That's not the relationship you have with God, at least not now that we're in the new covenant. On the contrary, God says that what pleases him the most is faith, with Hebrews 11:6 even saying, "Without faith, it is impossible to please God." Unfortunately, faith requires uncertainty. If you did know exactly what God wanted you to do, how much faith would it be possible for you to have? You'd have as much faith in God as you currently have in your boss. That's not the relationship he wants with you, and if he has to introduce uncertainty in order to get you to have faith, then he will, because faith is what he really wants.

The second answer is that God wants you to learn how to trust in him, not in the certainty of your circumstances or the certainty of your life's road map. In Philippians 2:6, Paul urges us, "Be anxious about nothing." In other words, don't be anxious about what God wants you to do. Don't stress about it. Don't worry about it. How is that possible? Paul continues, "In everything, by prayer and supplication with thanksgiving, let your requests be made known to God. And the peace of God, which surpasses all understanding, will guard your hearts and your minds in Christ Jesus." Paul then goes on to explain that he has been through everything in life: he's had enough food and not enough food, a place to stay and no place to stay, money and no money, but that he's learned how to be content through all of it because God is enough for him. Is God truly enough for you, or do you need God plus certainty, God plus security, God plus knowledge? If you're trying to add conditions, then God will deliberately thwart you, stripping you of the thing you think you need, in order to teach you that you don't really need it. Basically, this means we should get used to living without certainty, until we get to the point where we don't care whether we have it anymore.

So what exactly do you do if you're not sure what God wants you to do? Well, you have the Holy Spirit, God's own power, living inside you. Commit the matter to God in prayer and then do whatever seems best to you. You'll be learning how to trust him through the uncertainty, and that's exactly what he desires. Even if he were to tell you exactly what he wants and you were to execute his instructions down to the last letter, it still wouldn't please him as much as you simply having faith through the question marks. The other important lesson you have to learn, which is a whole separate article that I might write sometime, is to stop judging yourself based on how your decisions end up. If you do what you feel like God is calling you to do and it goes poorly, that doesn't mean you failed. The thought of failure often paralyzes Christians and causes us to be afraid of making any decision at all, so we sit on our butts until we wait for God to tell us exactly what he wants, which he doesn't usually do, so the end result is that we sit and sit and sit and sit and sit and never accomplish anything for God because we're too scared of failure. Fear is the opposite of faith. Even if you don't know exactly what God wants you to do, you'd better do something.

Ultimately, God is less interested in what you do than in who you are. Jesus chides the Pharisees because they're filthy on the inside even though they're perfect before the Law on the outside. "What does God want me to do" is never the most important question you face. "Who does God want me to be" is far more important, and who God wants you to be is a person with faith, a person who can trust God even when things are far from certain.

Jim Barringer is a 38-year-old writer, musician, and teacher. More of his work can be found at facebook.com/jmbarringer. This work may be reprinted for any purpose so long as this bio and statement of copyright is included.

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