The Will of God Hand Illustration

My basic tool for determining the specific will of God is the Will of God Hand Illustration. I didn't develop it, but I have refined it. One of the earlier versions can be found here:

An Original Will of God Hand Illustration

You can view my version here.

my version of the Will of God Hand Illustration

The concepts are placed on the fingers corresponding to their relative strength in the equation of determining God's will.

1. Prayer

Prayer is located on the thumb because it is the strongest component in your search for the will of God for your life. Prayer works with all the other components just like the thumb works with all the other fingers.

James 1:5 says “If any of you lacks wisdom, he should ask God, who gives generously to all without finding fault, and it will be given to him.” God wants to reveal His will to you and me for our lives. He wants us to ask and He wants to generously reveal to us His plan for our lives.

Jeremiah 33:3 says “'Call to me and I will answer you and tell you great and unsearchable things you do not know.'” God wants to answer us and tell us the great and unsearchable things about His plan for us that we don't currently know.

Both of these require humility on our part. The first part of praying is to “ask” or “call to” God. To do that, we have to acknowledge that we want to know what He has to say. I have to admit I don't know all the answers. I have to ask for help.

Practical Discipleship help on Prayer

2. The Word of God

The next finger, the index finger, is the Word of God. These two fingers together are quite powerful. In the same way, prayer and the Word of God together are quite powerful. Sitting before God with an open Bible and a prayerful attitude will do more to help you find the will of God for your life than anything else.

Psalm 119:105 says “Your word is a lamp to my feet and a light for my path.” What are a lamp and a light used for? So we can see the way. The light shows us the path, the big picture, down the road. The lamp shows us where to put our feet, the next step, the most immediate thing we need to do.

How great is that? We can see where we are headed, at least part of the way. And we can see where to take the next step to avoid the holes and the curbs and the obstacles.

No more stumbling around in the dark!

Psalm 119:125 says “I am your servant; give me discernment that I may understand your statutes.” It's not always easy to understand what God is trying to tell me in the Bible. It requires special illumination from God the Holy Spirit to understand the meaning of the scriptures for my life. That's where prayer interacts with regular Bible intake to reveal God's next step for my life.

Practical Discipleship help using in the Word of God

3. Godly Counsel

The middle finger is godly counsel. It's not as important as the index finger and the thumb. More importance should be attached to prayer and the Word of God than to godly counsel. But time permitting, it should not be ignored.

Proverbs 24:6 says “ for waging war you need guidance, and for victory many advisers.”

Proverbs 15:22 says “Plans fail for lack of counsel, but with many advisers they succeed.”

A good illustration to help understand godly counsel can be found here:

Temple Illustration on Godly Counsel

Not all counsel is “godly counsel.” Some people are not even followers of Jesus. Your friends who don't have a personal relationship with the Lord Jesus Christ will not be able to help you here. They may love you dearly, but their advice will be, at best, worldly and culturally correct. It's tough to provide godly counsel to someone if you are not seeking after God. These are the folks outside the temple, in the outer courts of the illustration.

Other friends are in the inner courts of the temple. They have made a personal decision to receive Jesus as Christ but may not yet be mature followers. This could be because of lack of time or lack of effort. Their advice may be little better than those in the outer courts.

What you are looking for is advice from people who spend time in the presence of God. Not only are they followers of the Lord Jesus Christ, but they meet with Him everyday. They lead the kind of life you want to lead.

Godly counsel should take you to the Word of God for the answers to your questions. Godly counsel should help you see scriptural principles you might have overlooked.

4. Circumstances

Wordnetweb.princeton.edu defines a circumstance as “a condition that accompanies or influences some event or activity.” Circumstances surround and influence our lives everyday, several times a day. Sometimes we recognize them. Sometimes we don't.

God is in control of the circumstances surrounding our lives. Consider . . .

Daniel 2:21 says “He changes times and seasons; he sets up kings and deposes them. He gives wisdom to the wise and knowledge to the discerning.”

Acts 17:26-28 says “From one man he made every nation of men, that they should inhabit the whole earth; and he determined the times set for them and the exact places where they should live. God did this so that men would seek him and perhaps reach out for him and find him, though he is not far from each one of us. 'For in him we live and move and have our being.' As some of your own poets have said, 'We are his offspring.'”

Philippians 2:13 says “for it is God who works in you to will and to act according to his good purpose.“

From these passages, and others, we can see God in control of everything around us. Nothing catches Him by surprise. When opportunities come to our attention they have been planned and/or allowed by God. When difficulties present themselves, same thing. They are planned and/or allowed by God.

Read the first 3 Chapters of Job for a unique insight to the events surrounding our lives.

Maybe you think God wants you to be a missionary to China. But you have $40,000 in school loans. Your circumstances may prevent you from going until you get those loans paid off.

Maybe you've been thinking about sharing the gospel with a co-worker, but you've been to chicken to take the initiative. One day your co-worker asks you to go to lunch. Just the two of you. Circumstances are making it easier for you to take the initiative to start a spiritual conversation.

Maybe you have been thinking about switching jobs. It's been in the back of your mind for several months. Then you forget about it. One day a friend tells you about a job opening they think you would be perfect for. The circumstance presents itself.

Circumstances should not be the sole criteria for deciding what God's will is for your life. However, they can trigger your thinking. And they can confirm things God is telling you through prayer, the Word of God and the counsel of godly people.

5. Peace

I purposely put peace on the little finger because I think way too many people rely on the feeling of peace as their determination of the will of God for their lives. I don't believe this is a Biblically correct decision making criteria. Peace is important. I want to experience the peace of God when I make an obedient decision concerning God's will for my life.

But I think God wants me to rely on my personal relationship with Him. He wants me to pray and consult the Bible. He wants me to relate to Him. He doesn't want me to make my decisions based on how I feel.

Feelings are self-centered and can be experienced without God being involved. One kind of peace comes from following the crowd, fitting in, not rocking the boat. This peace will not help you determine God's will for your life.

Another kind of peace comes from God . . .

Isaiah 26:3 says “You will keep in perfect peace him whose mind is steadfast, because he trusts in you.”

John 14:27 says “Peace I leave with you; my peace I give you. I do not give to you as the world gives. Do not let your hearts be troubled and do not be afraid.“

Colossians 3:15 says “Let the peace of Christ rule in your hearts, since as members of one body you were called to peace. And be thankful.”

Peace is a confirmation of the work you have done to correctly figure out what God wants you to do. If you diligently work through the first four parts of determining God's will and you experience peace with the final decision, Great! Move ahead.

If you do not experience peace, ask God why. It could be the next steps God has asked you to take are radically different than anything God has shown you before and it just takes some time for it to sink in.

Or it could be you have not got the final decision exactly right. Maybe you are suppose to be a missionary, but not in China. The lack of peace should send you back to God for additional guidance.

6. The Application of God's Will: Submission

Submission is both the first thing you need to do and the last thing you need to do when determining the will of God for your life.

Submission as the first thing.

I believe God will not reveal to you much of His specific will for your life until you wholeheartedly submit to it. I think it's important to tell God you will do whatever He asks you to do before you ask Him to reveal it to you.

God is not in the business of laying his plan out for you to decide if you think it's a good idea to do things His way or not. When you ask Him to reveal His will to you, you better be prepared to obey all of it.

This is not “advice” we are asking for. This is the will of the all-powerful, all-knowing, all-present God. We need to approach Him as such.

Look at Jesus' attitude when he was praying the night before he was arrested.

Luke 22:42 says "Father, if you are willing, take this cup from me; yet not my will, but yours be done."

Mark 14:36 says "Abba, Father," he said, "everything is possible for you. Take this cup from me. Yet not what I will, but what you will."

Both of these accounts show the attitude of Jesus. He wasn't real excited about what was going to happen next. He asked God to change it. But his attitude was “not my will, but yours.”

Our attitude needs to be the same, “not my will, Father, but yours.”

Submission as the last thing we do.

Now you understand what God's will is for your life. The question is, “will you do it?”

If you made submission the first thing you did, then you are more inclined to carry through. But you still have to make good decisions. You have to choose to do as much of God's will as you understand.

It can be hard. But it's necessary if you want to be all you can be for God. Until you do what He has revealed to you, you not ready. You are not in position for Him to reveal the next action steps for your life.

The “Lighthouse Effect”

You can think of the fingers on the Will of God Hand Illustrations like lighthouses. The captain of the ship wants the lighthouses to line up in a row. He wants them to appear as a single light in the distance. As long as he steers toward the one single light his ship is safe.

If he gets off course, the individual lights will separate and he will see them individually. If he continues on this course, his ship is in danger.

He makes course corrections until, once again, the individual lights line up and present themselves as one light.

In the same way, I want all of the fingers of my Will of God Hand to point in the same direction. I want to see one light. I want to steer toward that one direction God has revealed to me through those five different lights.

Try it and let me know how it works for you!

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