At the church I grew up in was a member who always came dressed in the most outrageous outfits. Her socks never matched, and her clothing was always a strange mish-mash. When asked about her obviously poor ability to dress herself she replied that she always asked God what to wear, and she wore whatever he picked out. Mostly the other congregants laughed off her behavior; I cannot recall a single time anyone explored further the theology that drove her to such extreme fashions. Possibly because everyone wishes that God was that active in their lives and are a little disappointed that he isn’t.

Since then I’ve met hundreds of people with the same secret desire, that God’s will for us would be much easier to discern. As a minister to a group of college students I heard the question frequently. “How can I choose a major when I don’t know what God’s will for my life is?” “How can I commit to a relationship with someone without knowing if they are God’s will for me?” “I’ve been offered a great job, but how can I know if God wants me to take it?”

Often we feel our way through life as if we are in a dark tunnel, looking for the light of God’s instruction. If God’s Word is a lamp unto our feet, it doesn’t appear to be a very bright lamp. It never occurs to us that maybe we’re not asking the right questions.

Is God concerned about what socks we wear? It’s easy to dismiss something so mundane, but how is it any different from picking a college major, a spouse or a job? As always, when seeking direction for life its best to look to God’s word. Everything we need for a remarkable life can be found within its pages. And when I look at the greatest men and women of the Bible, what I see is as important as what I don’t see.

I see that God chose men and women, single and married, employed and unemployed. He specially chose people who were farmers, kings, beggars, fishermen, tax collectors, swindlers and more. Why is it that the things we think are so important don’t seem to be an issue for Elohim? The answer, I believe, lay in his sovereignty; he can reach us and guide us no matter where he finds us. So while God is occasionally concerned with our attire (he clothed Adam and eve after the fall, yet instructed Isaiah to sit naked in the town square) he is more concerned about our spiritual condition.

Maybe we’ll explore what the Bible has to say about our dress, work and marital status in the near future, but for now let’s focus on what is most important to God. What is his will for our life? I’ll tell you the same thing I told my college students: Ephesians 1.4.

For he chose us in Christ before the foundation of the world that we may be holy and unblemished in his sight in love.

There it is, God’s will for your life is to be holy and blameless. The good news is that his will is easy to understand, the bad news is his will is difficult to achieve. Thankfully there is more to discover in this single verse. While we are certainly to strive to be holy and blameless in a judicial sense (that’s the hard part), the rest of the verse tells us that we are to be holy and blameless in his site. That means our state as holy and blameless is in a positional sense, something that is achieved when we put our faith and trust in Jesus. This distinction is important, and is something we’ll take up in more detail next time.