Telling the Truth for Women

Jill Briscoe: How do you do life on purpose? How do you know that you're in the will of God? What is the will of God? Often I get asked these questions. I have been asked, does God have a plan for my life? Does he want me to marry one particular person? Does he want me to stay single? Does he want me to divorce? Does he want me to make the most of this difficult marriage? Does the Bible promise my husband will come to Christ if I pray enough? Surely this is the will of God.

Is there anything in the Bible that will help me to know what to do with difficult relationships? What does God want me to do with my aging parents? Does he want me to be a missionary or a mother, or a mother who's a missionary? Does he want me to be a banker, an engineer, a politician? What does he want me to do with my money? Does he leave me to figure all this out and just take care of the religious part of my life? Does he expect me to use my head, my common sense, and just look after church in my life?

Does he want me to move to another town? Does he want me to take another job? Does he want me to sell my house? Does he want me to buy two more? Should I join the Navy, the Air Force, the Army, or the Salvation Army? Well, what about the church and mission? Surely he wouldn't want me to go overseas, not me, to India, Africa. I don't like snakes. Asia? I get heat rashes. Russia, Siberia? I can't function in the cold. So that would never be the will of God for me.

I mean, how do we know that Mrs. Noah liked animals? We seem to have this idea in our head that the will of God would match everything I like doing. Because surely the will of God should make me happy. The will of God should be there for me. Now we're going to talk about the will of God. How will we know what the will of God is? How will we know if we're hearing his voice? What will his voice sound like?

In Corrie ten Boom's wonderful little book, *Reflections of God's Glory*, she addressed a little bit of that question about how we'll know his voice. She says somebody said to her, "I never hear anything when I ask for guidance." And she said, "Are you listening? If you're spiritually confused, if you cannot figure out the right thing to do in a particular situation, you need to remain in his presence until the confusion changes." And that's one of the things we'll talk about.

How do we listen? What does that voice, that pointed voice, tell us? And how? How can we know it's not our own imagination? Now, one of the problems about discovering the will of God is our own heart. Do we really want to? You've got to really want to. You've got to really search for his will and purpose in your life with all your heart. God said you'll find me, and with me, the will of God for you, when you look for it with all your heart.

One of the reasons that we don't want to find the will of God is we have a sneaking suspicion that we won't like it if we find it, and that if we really open ourselves up to God's voice, what he tells us will result in us having to reject or resist or run away from the will of God. And so we're really not honest. We get on our knees and we pray, "Lord, I'm willing to go," and we're secretly planning to stay.

That doesn't work, because you'll never know the will of God if you don't want to. If you don't want to, start there and tell him that. Say, "I don't want to, but I'm willing to be made willing. I'm willing to want to." That's all right. Some of you will have to start right back there and say, "I'm sort of scared. I don't know what the voice is going to tell me to do, I don't know what I'm going to discover, and I don't know what it'll cost me. I don't know what my family will think, or my husband, or my wife, or my girlfriend, or my boyfriend." Do you want to discover it?

The Hebrew word "will" means pleasure. Pleasure. To do his pleasure, to do what pleases him. My husband, Stuart, takes Ephesians 1 and says the big plan, the macro plan, is that one day every knee will bow and every tongue will confess to God that Jesus Christ is Lord. That's the big picture. But there's a little micro plan in there, and that's a lot of what we're going to be talking about. What's my part of the big thing? Is there a my part in the big thing?

So this Hebrew word "pleasure," to do his pleasure, to make God smile, to bring pleasure to the heart of God is all about the will of God and what it's about. It is his pleasure that we should discover his pleasure. It is God's will to guide us. Listen: "I will instruct and teach you in the way you should go. I will counsel you and watch over you." It's a promise. Can we know if God wants us to know his will? Yes, he said, "I will instruct you. Ask me."

Have you ever got down on your knees and asked him as honestly as you can? Place yourself into the presence of God, sit there as honestly as you can until the focus changes from you to him and you begin to sense his grace. I can't tell you what that feels like, but stay there until the confusion clears and you begin to know the will of God. We're going to talk about the practical ways that he will show us as we go along.

Will and can I discover the will of God? Yes, it is his will that you do and that I do. Do I want to? That's another question. Maybe that's what we have to wrestle with on our knees at our bedside tonight. Will God help me to want to discover it, to discover it, and then of course, to do it? Yes. God will work this out. Philippians 2:13: "It's God who works in us both to will and to act according to his purpose."

God's energy works inside us. That energy is God's energy, an energy deep within you. God himself willing and working at what gives him the most pleasure. That's *The Message* rendition of Philippians 2:13. There's an energy that God makes over to us that begins to work within our hearts. God himself willing inside us, working inside us what gives him pleasure. What gives him pleasure? That we should know and do life on purpose, that we should find the purpose of God. Not just the big purpose of God, which is theological in a sense, but the micro, the little bit, my bit of the purposes of God as well.

Now, number one. First, to know the will of God, I'll have to know God. That sounds very elementary, but let me just pause here for a minute. You cannot know the will of God till you know God himself. Till you find God or you stop long enough for him to find you. How does this happen? You need first to know he offers you a relationship. You cannot know the will of God outside of an ongoing relationship with God through Christ.

John 1. Listen to this. There's three things in this one verse. It talks about recognizing him, receiving him, and relating to him. All those things have to happen, and that's what it means to know God. John 1: "He was in the world, the world was made by him, and the world did not recognize him. He came to that which was his own, but his own did not receive him (number two). Yet to all that received him, to those who believed in his name, he gave the right to relate to him, to become the children of God."

We cannot begin to know the will of God until we know him. How do we know him? We recognize him. We look in the manger and figure out who that baby is. When I was speaking to one of the senior groups, I told a story of Stuart and I being in Portugal. Some businessmen had paid a lot of money to have 250 women, not one of them who knew Christ, from all over Portugal, from the high to the low, to come to the country club that they had hired and to have a beautiful lunch at their expense and to listen to a speaker, who happened to be me.

It was my joy and privilege to present the gospel to these women. I looked around and they were a challenging bunch of women. I began to panic inside. Had the talk that I had in my heart for them been well enough prepared? Had I heard the voice of God telling me what exactly I had to do in this situation? I wasn't sure. I became very unsure of myself.

So I slipped away, and they were all having drinks provided for them on the balcony. I went into the dining room, which was empty, and I found my place and I sat down with my back to the door and I began to go over my notes and pray, "Lord, do you want me to scrap this? Do you want me just to stand up and give my testimony? What do you want me to do? Help me to hear your voice."

That's why I was so absorbed, I didn't see her come in. But suddenly the most beautiful, tall girl, about six-foot tall, gorgeous English girl with long blonde hair, an artist, came around me very quietly and sat on the floor at my feet, looked at me and said, "I feel strangely drawn to you. I don't do this sort of thing. I think you can help me."

I prayed, "Holy Spirit, give me what she needs." And so I said, "Maybe you're seeking God." She said, "Maybe that's it." I said, "Tell me about yourself." She said, "I'm English, I don't tell people about myself. What do you mean?" I said, "Tell me about your spiritual journey." "Oh," she said, "you mean my religious philosophy?" I said, "Yes."

She said, "I don't just have one religious philosophy. Who has one religious philosophy? Who is to say that one philosophy is greater than another philosophy or one truth is bigger than all truth? So I serve and worship and seek many gods in many places." She was typical of the European young woman into New Age. And so I said, "Which of all your philosophies has helped you the most?" She said, "Oh, that's easy. Astrology." I said, "Isn't that amazing?"

"Years and years ago, 2,000 years ago, some astrologers traveled halfway around the world and they came and they knelt at a manger because they knew who that baby was." I said, "Victoria, you're going to have to find out who you believe that baby was. Because every religion in the world must kneel at the manger. Because every religion of the world must acknowledge he is Lord of Lords, he is God of Gods. And you will never find what you've been looking for all your life until you come with all your philosophy and all your beliefs, and all those beliefs and all those religions have to kneel at the manger and say, 'Who is that baby?'"

She said, "Is there any hope for me?" I said, "If you seek him with all your heart." She looked at me and said, "Help me." "I will." "Help me." "I will." She began to recognize, as I talked to her later and, God, I tell you it was a miracle. God kept those women on the balcony. It was just the fact there was a lot to drink out there, I think, which was a genius stroke of somebody's idea. And kept the whole place empty until I had said what God took me halfway around the world to say.

It was part of his purposes that Jill Briscoe and Victoria should meet in Portugal at an event like this. It's very exciting to live in the center of the will of God and see people looking in the manger, see them recognizing him. Watching him at Nazareth, the word becoming flesh. Listening to him telling his parents, "I must be about my father's will, my father's business, my father's things." If you want to know what makes me me, then it's my father's things. It's my father's will. That's why I'm here. That's why I came to the manger. That's it.

We recognize God in Christ walking on our earth. Then we receive him by a prayer. We receive his spirit, and that's where the relationship begins. Then we begin to relate in that relationship as his child. Now what does that mean? The more you live with people, the more you become like them. That's what it means. As we relate in prayer and study and grow to love him and know him, we begin to know what he wants.

The more familiar you become in this relationship, having recognized him and received him, the more you will know what the will of God is without thinking. I have a sister, an older sister. When my dad was alive, he built up probably one of the largest car dealerships in the north of England. It was a very, very prosperous business. Ever since she was a little girl, my sister has wanted to do boy things. She had her daddy's genes in her.

She used to play, even as a little girl, with cars and things. Then she grew up and became a race car driver, a very good one. Raced in the Monte Carlo Rally and did very well. She took over my father's business. He brought her into the business and she went to school and she became a top mechanic. One day my dad died. I was on the board of that business. I went home to England to have a board meeting after he'd died.

The whole board was sitting there, my sister was sitting in my father's chair. Something came up that was very important that had to be dealt with. We all sat there and looked at each other and nobody said anything because we didn't know what to do about it. Nobody around that table knew what to do. My sister said very quietly, "What would Daddy do?" All of us looked up and knew immediately what Daddy would have done. That's what we did.

What would Daddy do? What would Daddy do? Because my sister had lived and worked that business with my father, she knew what Daddy would do. She knew what he would will to happen. She knew what would please him and bring him pleasure in that particular business situation. So that's what we did. The more we know him—Daddy, Father, through Christ, by the Spirit—the more we will know what to do.

When we get into a bad situation, if we'll be still enough, long enough, quiet enough, and dare enough to ask him, "What would Daddy do? What would you do? What would Jesus do? What would Daddy do?" You will come to know without a voice, without much trouble at all. So it really comes down to the ruling principle that will become the ruling passion in your life will be the principle of pleasing God, who you know. Abba, Father bit. It's that bit.

The more you relate to God, the more you will know what Daddy would do or have you do or have done in a situation. First you must know God. Secondly, you must follow Christ. If you take your Bible—Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John—and read the Gospels, watch him, listen to him. These are the sort of things he said: "Your will be done," he taught the disciples to pray it. Christ himself did God's will.

There's tens of hundreds of times in the Bible, in the Old Testament and New Testament, references that tell us about this. In the Old Testament: "I delight to do your will." This is written about Jesus. "Oh my God, yes, your law is within my heart." So if you follow in his footsteps through the Gospel, you can listen to him talking about the will of God: "Thy will be done as in heaven, so on earth." So figure it. How is God's will done in heaven? What do you think? That's what he wants done on earth.

Make a list of what you think it means to do the will of God in heaven. How do angels do his will? There are hints. Watch him doing the will of God all his life. He said, "I do always those things that please him." If you want to know what it looks like to do the will of God, look at Jesus. Read the four Gospels in a sitting. Probably take you a couple of hours. That's all right. You take a couple of hours to watch a ball game. Get your Bible and look for the will of God in the life of Christ.

You know God. You follow Christ through the Gospels. You keep up with the Spirit, number three. As you follow Christ, you keep in step with the Spirit. You come to know the mind of Christ just as you suddenly discover as you relate to God in prayer and study and interiorly in the intimate things of God, as you get to know him better. Then you also come to know the mind of the Spirit. It says in the Bible, the Spirit of God knows the mind of God. Do you know the Bible says we have the mind of Christ?

The Spirit knows the mind of God just like the spirit of a man knows the mind of the man. You alone, you're the only one in the world that really knows yourself. The Spirit of God is the only one that really knows God. So if we have the Spirit, we have the mind of Christ. And so the possibility is that he can, because we have his mind, show us what to do. God can reveal it to us by his Spirit.

Listen: "We haven't received the spirit of the world, but the spirit who is from God, that we may understand what God has freely given us. This will be in words taught by the spirit, expressing spiritual truths in spiritual words." The Holy Spirit can instruct us. He will instruct us because we have the mind of Christ. Sometimes I have people say to me, "It's beyond me, I am in such a dilemma." It's not beyond him.

You have the mind of Christ. You don't have a bit of his mind. You received the Holy Spirit. You can't receive a bit of a person. The Holy Spirit is a person. So you've received all you're going to get. He hasn't received all he's going to get of you, but you have the mind of Christ. You have God himself. He will instruct your mind as to his mind. We've got everything going for us.

We know God, we follow Christ, we keep in step with the Spirit, and we resist the devil who has the counterplan. God has plans for us, and so does the devil. That's the counterplan. Satan wants to rob us of God and rob God of us. He's a murderer and a robber. His will, the devil's will, is to stop coloring your world with the bright hues of forgiveness.

He wants to stop you serving the church, helping the poor, preaching the gospel, teaching Sunday school, learning scripture, giving your money to other people, especially missions. Giving yourself to missions. Horrors! And everything else that makes you like Jesus Christ, who he hates with infernal fervor that will keep him burning with the fires of hatred in hell forever and ever and ever and ever. And he has a plan for us just as surely as God has a plan and purpose for us. We have to resist him. We have to resist him.

What he does is he tempts us with the world and he tempts us with the flesh or ourself and he just tempts us, as the devil. He tries to get us to play with sin, with unbelief, with doubt. He wants us to doubt that God wants us to find his will. It doesn't matter how he does it, he will find a way for us to play with doubt in our mind, or play with sin in reality, or just tempt us with one little thing. We'll think, at any point I can stop this.

Often the devil, I think, starts with a little habit. Just a little habit and you think, "There's nothing wrong with this little habit," and you play with it and you play with it. It's all right. At any point you can stop this little habit. Reminds me of Trumble, the man who had a circus. Used to go around the world, it's a true story, at the turn of the century. He had a snake. He bred the little snake. It was like this when it came out of its mother snake. At any moment he could put his heel on it and it would be gone.

When it grew and grew and grew, he had trained it from birth to wrap itself around his body until a man was totally hidden and only the head of the snake was seen. It was in London, turn of the century, at the height of that act, which was the climax, that there was a piercing scream as the python crushed him to death. That's a perfect picture of sin and what the devil wants to do with us. Just wants you to play with it.

He tempts us to believe that at any point, if we just play with a little bit of it, we can put our foot on it and get out of it. Doesn't work like that. That's his plan to stop us doing and learning the will of God. What is the prerequisite for knowing God's will? What does Jesus teach us about the will of God? What place does the Holy Spirit play in helping us discover the will of God? How can we resist the will of the devil?

This is the theological academic setup because the next section I want to do is the practicalities of some things that help us discover the will of God. Know God, follow Christ, keep in step with the spirit, resist the devil. This part is the relational thing of finding out what Daddy would do as an automatic reaction to situations that come along. The better you know God, the better you will know what to do. The better you will know the will of God and the purpose of God for your life.

Secondly, let's look at doing and applying the will of God. Learning to see my piece in the big piece of the puzzle. I always remember my parents having a plan for my life, my tennis coach having a plan for my life, my boyfriends having a plan for my life, my teachers and my employers. It never occurred to me growing up that God had a plan for my life and that his was the master plan. But it wasn't until he was the master of my life that the master plan made sense.

There came a time when I said I'm planning to be part of the plan. The micro, my piece of doing, understanding, discovering, and doing the will of God comes as I begin to live at the cross. Make sure you're fully surrendered to Christ and to the will of God that you know, not that you don't know, but the will of God that you know already. We'll talk about that.

Does God have a daily planner for you? If so, how do I find out what is on it Monday to Friday? There's a very interesting little piece of scripture in James 4:13-17. It says this: "Now listen you who say today or tomorrow we will go into this or that city, spend a year here and there, carry on business and make money. Have you ever done that?"

"Why, you don't know what will happen tomorrow. What is your life? It's a mist that appears for a little while and then vanishes. Instead you ought to say if the Lord wills, we will live and do this and that. As it is you boast and brag and all such boasting is evil." When I first met Stuart, he came from a very tight group of people called Plymouth Brethren. They were very conservative. I was very puzzled as a new believer to be introduced to a family that kept saying DV.

His father would say, "I have business to do down in Kendall, DV." His mother would say, "I'm hoping to go back to Millum and visit Mother, DV." And so I said to Stuart, "What's DV?" He said, "Deo Volente." I said, "What's that?" "God willing. If God wills." It was part of the vocabulary of this group of Christians. They didn't only say DV, they lived DV.

My father-in-law would no more plan to go to this, that place and do business without first being on his knees saying, "Is this in the purpose? Is this in the macro plan for me? Is this your purpose? Is this your will?" Because it's not my will, my ambitions, my plans that matter once we have fully surrendered to God. You've got to live a DV life if you're going to know the will of God.

So you live at the cross and you ask yourself, "Am I fully surrendered? Will I go any place, any time, anywhere?" I had the wonderful opportunity of standing in London at a Just Give Me Jesus rally at the Royal Albert Hall. Years ago I was in that place, a new believer, four or five months old, with the girl who'd led me to Jesus. She was volunteering for Billy Graham, Harringay Crusade. 2,000 workers for that crusade were in the Royal Albert Hall.

Can you imagine? Here I am nearly 50 years later with Billy Graham's daughter on that platform, ministering to my people, my country. It was overwhelming. But I started off my session telling them that I had sat where they sat, up in the third balcony, nearly 50 years ago, and listened to Dr. Billy Graham preach to the workers of Harringay Crusade and give them a challenge before the crusade ever began. It was simply this: "Will you surrender to the will of God anywhere, any place, any time?"

He invited us to come forward and I walked forward in the Royal Albert Hall in England. There is no way I could have discovered the macro plan for my life if that decision had not been made. From then on in, as he revealed his will, I had to do what Jesus did. I had to have a personal Gethsemane, a personal Calvary, and a personal Pentecost to do the will that he revealed to me. Because many times the will of God is not what we want to hear about. It is not the pleasurable, fun stuff that I expect God to heap onto my life as if I had a right to all of that.

It's the difficult things. I had to go to Gethsemane, as it were, and pull myself alongside the will of God. I had to go to a Calvary and remember Christianity is the "I" crossed out, and die to what I would like my plan to be, my purposes, my pleasure. Then I had to ask for a personal Pentecost and the power to do the will of God that had been revealed to me. So that's all wrapped up in asking you a very searing question: are you surrendered to God? Any time, any place, anywhere. You cannot know the will of God without full surrender.

Now once that's settled, there's a wonderful little illustration that Stuart used to give to teenagers in all those years we used to work with kids. It's a very simple illustration of an airplane landing on a runway in the dark. How does the airplane know how to land and where to land? Because there are little lights all along the runway. The idea is that if the little lights are lit, you'll land safely.

Some of us are here because we have to land on a decision. We are facing a very important decision, or it's very important to us. We want to know whether to land on it, whether to come down in this direction or that direction. What you need to do is ask yourself: are the lights lit? Is it saying, "Yes, land"? Is the tower telling you it's safe? "I'll show you where to land."

A lot of people land on decisions with one light lit, which is a very silly thing to do. The idea is to try and find as many lights as possible lit. I believe you will never get all the lights lit, and there will in the end always be a step of faith and a landing that needs to be made. But the idea is to get a few of those lights lit. What I want to do is talk about those lights for a few minutes.

First of all, there's the Word of God. "Your word is a light to my feet and a light to my path. Direct my footsteps according to your word." Be in the word. Is that light lit? Have you got a decision to make? Then every day are you looking for the answer as well as doing your devotions? When I have a dilemma, when there is a big question of what I should do, a procedure that I should take.

It says in Ecclesiastes incidentally that there is a time for every procedure. Sometimes it's a matter of seeking the right time to do something. So I am in the word and I am doing all my devotional study, but this is always on the back burner. Suddenly a principle in the scriptures will apply to it, will throw light on it, will show me, and the light will go on. The light will go on.

I remember a kid coming to me and asking me to start and visit the pubs where all his friends were and tell them about Jesus. I didn't know what to do about that. I didn't know whether I wanted to do that, whether other people would see me going into these places, these strip joints and pubs and think, "What she doing that for?" It would bring dishonor perhaps upon Jesus or the church or the organization. So I didn't know what to do.

It was on the back burner. I was busy studying and teaching and preparing, but it was there all the time and it was in my little prayer book: "Should I go into these places?" God began to say to me, "What's the problem, Jill?" I suddenly realized what the problem was. I was concerned about my reputation. I think I was concerned more about my reputation than his reputation, if I was really honest. The Holy Spirit convicted me of that.

Now I've got a step further. The problem was I couldn't figure out whether to say yes to Trevor and go with him and start this pub work or not, because quite honestly, I didn't want anyone to see me going in those places. So I'm looking in the scriptures and I have it in mind and I'm reading this and I'm reading that, nothing seems to gel. Then I get into the book of Philippians and in Philippians chapter 2 it describes the great graph of grace that Jesus made from highest heaven to lowest hell for you and for me. In the middle of Philippians 2, it says this: "He made himself of no reputation."

A light. God said to me, "So what are you worrying about yours for? He did this for you, now you do this for him." The light came on. I did not start that pub work on one light, but it was a light. Then you can say, "Confirm it, God." Suddenly out of the scriptures it all began to tumble. "Go into all the world," don't wait for the world to come to you. Light, same light.

Principles began to pile upon principle. I don't open my Bible and it says, "Go into the pub with Trevor." Doesn't work like that. But you take the will of God from the Word of God and the Word of God reveals the will of God. It will never reveal anything contrary to the Word of God. That doesn't happen. Then you're obedient to what you discover.

A boy said to me down at the front years ago: "I'm living with my girlfriend. She's not a Christian and she's married. Can you help me find the will of God?" Now this is a really easy one, right? I just went to this: it says, "Avoid sexual immorality, this is God's will." 1 Thessalonians 4. That's about living with the girlfriend.

He said, "She's not a Christian but I'm praying about it." I said, "Save your breath. God says be not unequally yoked together with an unbeliever. So what you praying about? She's married. Thou shalt not covet. That means want what someone else has got that's not yours, your neighbor's wife." So on three counts the will of God is revealed in the Word of God and you don't need to go for any other lights on that one.

His guidance will never be contrary to his word. So you surrender to what you know on your knees in prayer. Then you'll find all sorts of things tumbling out of your readings: "Flee youthful lusts that war against the soul," "Remove your foot from evil," "Get off the roof, David. Just get off the roof. What are you up there for? First look isn't sin, the second one is. Get off the roof." You look in story, you look in picture, you look in example. This will show you the will of God in the obvious things and the not-so-obvious things.

So you surrender to what is obvious and what you know, you really know already. That young man really knew. Incidentally, I said to him, "Why don't you marry her? You've lived with her for six years." He said, "She's not a Christian." Think about that. That's confusion. He knew that the Bible said she had to be a Christian to get married, so he lived with her. That's how confused we can get if we are not in the Word of God.

"Can you recommend a good book on the subject?" somebody asked me as I was coming in. I said, "Yes, the Bible. Great book." His guidance will never be contrary to his word. So that's one light. Second light: recognize the will of God in the adverse circumstances of life. Circumstances. Often the adverse circumstances of life will show you what to do.

The plan of God, for example, in permitted pain. Read the book of Job. Job learned the God of the plan who had a plan for his life through pain. Often God hides his face but he never absences himself from a situation. God might be a God who hides himself, but never a God who absences himself. Sometimes in the dark but never at a distance. I love that quote.

Sometimes in the dark but never at a distance. Sometimes like in Job's case, he got very confused about the plan of God until he gets all the way through to chapter 42 and he says, "Oh, I get it, I get it, I get it." The more he clearly saw God and related to him, the more he clearly saw the plan that had been permitted. God will permit pain. Can pain be in the will of God? Yes. Look at the cross. Look at Job.

The wonderful thing about recognizing the will of God in the adverse circumstance of life, it's a light on the runway. You need to look around the situation. Sometimes you only see the will of God in retrospect. You look back and you say, "Oh, I get it, that's why." Oh, that's why. I have my mentor, my model, 80 years of age, wonderful lady. She gave a testimony in a conference I was at when she was on her 80th birthday party there. She said, "I love getting old because I can look back and say, 'Oh, that's why.'"

She said, "When I was young I used to say why. Why did my father die and leave my mother with six children? We lived below the poverty line in Northern Ireland. Why did my husband have to go to the Second World War and be away all that time and I had to run the whole deal back home and the mission and everything else? Why did my children not have a Daddy because my husband was on the road for God all those years?" Now I'm 80 I can look back and say, "That's why, that's why, that's why."

Then she told us how because of what God had permitted in her life, the adverse circumstances of life, she was absolutely incredibly ready and suitable to head up one of the biggest missions in the world and understand young people without fathers. Understand what it took to raise people without any money and below the poverty line because that's how they lived in mission for years and years and years. Learned to ask in faith on their knees for the things that were not provided in the normal way.

She kept looking back and saying, "If I hadn't been this and I hadn't done that, I would never have known how to do this." So often that's one thing that comes with age: we can look back in retrospect and see the will of God. We can see the will of God. Paul said, "The things that happened to me have fallen out to the spread of the gospel."

You can be sure of one thing that if you are living in pain or in the adverse circumstances of life, the plan of God is that the gospel somehow will be enhanced and disseminated because of it. Paul was imprisoned, chained to a Roman guard. He led him to Christ. Guy couldn't get away. Every four hours they chained another one to him. They must have said, "Oh no, it's my turn, chained to that prisoner, Paul." They came to Christ one by one by one. I can see Paul's eyes glinting as he shared the gospel with a guy that couldn't get away.

He says about that: "The things that happened to me in jail have fallen out to the spread of the gospel. And now people even in Caesar's household know Christ, because God permitted me to be in prison chained to a Roman guard." The wonderful thing is as you look back in retrospect you see, like Joseph said, "The devil meant it for evil but God meant it for good." Within the plan of God there will be adverse circumstance.

But remember that God isn't willing that any should perish. That's his will. He's not willing that any should perish. He is willing that all should come to repentance. One of the reasons he allows us to suffer and suffer adverse circumstances is for the spread of the gospel. Heard a marvelous story on this trip. Mission called Open Doors working in restricted countries. One country where nobody was allowed to preach the gospel.

There was a pastor and he had a Bible and a Communist guard got on the plane and started rummaging through everybody's carriages and looking for things. Came into this pastor's place and he hid his Bible, but the guard started going through his case and found it. He opened the window and threw it out. It was probably one of the only Bibles in that country at the time. The pastor was devastated. He goes home and he continues doing the best he can in a restricted form.

One day this man knocks at the door. He says, "I've come for you to help me find Christ and become a Christian." He said, "Who are you? Where'd you come from?" He said, "The most amazing thing happened. I was working on the railway. A train went by. Suddenly a window opened and a book was thrown out. It landed right at my feet. I picked it up and put it in my pocket and took it home. I've been reading it. I've come to faith, I've come to Christ, and I want you to baptize me."

Things that happened to me have happened to the furtherance of the gospel. That man said, "God, this in your plan? That the one Bible that I know is in this whole region is taken out of my hands and thrown out of a train and now there's no Bible in the whole of this part of the country?" God says, "No plan of mine can be thwarted. The things that have happened to you have happened to the furtherance of the gospel."

So that's a light. Sometimes circumstances get us into a corner and you need to look around and say, "Okay, so where's my guard that I need to lead to Christ in this particular situation? What do you want me to do?" Then you need to listen to advice. That's another light. Seek wise counsel. "Make plans by seeking advice." Proverbs 20:18. "Make plans by seeking advice. In the multitude of counselors there is safety. For waging war you need guidance. For victory, many advisers." Proverbs 24:6. "For lack of guidance a nation falls, but many advisers make victory sure." Find godly people that know you well and ask their advice.

When Stuart was wondering whether to leave the bank and go into missions, he went to three people that knew him best: a bank examiner that he'd worked with in business, an elder in a church who was a family friend, and his father. He asked them, "Should I leave the banking career and go into full-time work?" All three said, "No, not time." So he stayed in the bank and he rose up the ladder to the top by the time he was 26.

Then we began to sense that God's plan, micro plan for us was to leave the business world and go into Christian work. He went back to the same three people and he asked advice. Everyone of them said, "Yes, timing. Timing is right." So we sought advice. That's a light. We saw that we had three lights: the Word of God, circumstances, the advice of other Christians. Common sense, it's a light.

Common sense doesn't mean a lack of faith. Use your head. Do the obvious. God expects us to use our reason, judgment, which is another name for common sense. Dawson Trotman said, "God gave you a lot of leading when he gave you your head." Don't be stupid in other words. The will of God is like going towards traffic lights and you're supposed to run your life on green. You can't guide a stationary car.

You've got to be going towards what you think is the will of God or the right decision. You've got to live your life on green. Then try and be obedient if you get a red or a caution—go slow. But most people sit there and wait. They wait for the green. They think they have to live their life on the red or on the yellow. No, you live your life on green, you've got to be going. And as you're going, God can guide you and he can put out those traffic lights for you.

So lights along the runway help. Inner peace—is that feelings? No, it's deeper than that. It's to do with prayer. There are many lights along the runway: the Word of God, circumstances, common sense, timing, the advice of other Christians. Very practical things. If you have a big dilemma and a big decision to make, make sure you get as many lit as you can.

You can't get them all lit, but get more than one. Some people have said, "I just have peace about it, and I'm landing on this decision just on that." What does the Word of God say? What do people that know you best say? What about your circumstances? I just feel that God is convicting me to do this. That can be one light. Don't land on one light. Seek God.

We discover the will of God by knowing God, following Christ, keeping in step with the Spirit, the Christian life. What would Daddy do? We do the will of God in the macro, in our little micro way by landing on our decisions and practically looking for all those lights lit along the runway. Common sense, being in the Word of God, inner conviction, advice of other Christians, circumstances, etc.

Then we want to delight in the will of God. The perfect story in the Bible is the story of Jonah. Jonah didn't want to do the will of God that was revealed to him. He had absolutely no problem figuring what it was because apparently God leaned out of heaven and in a loud voice said, "Go to Nineveh." He went to Tarshish, which was in the opposite direction, as far away as he could get.

What happens if you don't want to do the will of God and you start resisting or running like Jonah did? What is your Nineveh? It might be that you know very well what you should do. You should give up that non-Christian girlfriend or boyfriend. You should quit playing with the sin. Whatever. But you're resisting like Jonah. You don't want to go to Nineveh and deal with it.

What happened to him is he got on a boat and three times it said he went down. He went down to Joppa, he went down in the boat, and he went down in the whale. When you're resisting and running away from what God wants you to do for your life, you'll find yourself going down. Down spiritually. Not only that, he caused havoc on the boat for other people.

If you allow your spiritual temperature to go cold, you will affect everybody around you. You cannot sin as a Christian by resisting the will of God and not affect those people around you. The soldiers around him were affected by the storm that Jonah caused because of his disobedience. So we find him affecting others, causing havoc, running away because he told them, "I'm running away from the will of God."

Of course we know the story. They tried to get the boat to shore, it wouldn't go. The storm got worse and they said to Jonah, "What do we do to you so the storm will stop for us?" He said, "Throw me overboard." He knew the storm that he had caused was affecting others. So he repented in chapters 2 and 3. God gave him a second chance. God is a God of the second chance.

He hit rock bottom. He said, "God, if you get me out of this pit, I'll go to Nineveh." God did. So he went and he preached. The whole city came to God. In chapter 4 we find him resenting the will of God. So we find him running away, repenting, but even though he was doing the will of God, he was doing it with a sour spirit and a bad attitude.

God is just as concerned about how we do the will of God as doing the will of God that we discover. God begins to deal with him. We see in chapter 4 the anger of Jonah and the compassion of God. He says, "Why are you so angry?" Jonah said, "Because I don't like Ninevites. I didn't want to do this. They've all been forgiven, and I don't think they deserve it. I want vengeance. I want them to get theirs. I knew this would happen if I preached the gospel to them, the gospel of grace. I just want to die."

He's so angry, he's resenting the will of God. There's all sorts of ways you can do the will of God. "Oh, all right." God isn't impressed. I remember a woman cleaning the castle that was our Bible school. It was a miserable business. In England it rains all the time. We were in the country. You have 300 Bible students, they come in from the mess and the wet and they go all over and she's just got the floors.

She had a terrible attitude. She knew that God had called her to serve as a servant in that place. Boy, did she serve with a bad attitude. I remember her trying to sweep us out of the office one day to get the floors cleaned and she said, "Get out, get out, I've got to clean the floors. I'll do my work to the glory of God!" That's how some of us do our work.

Okay, this is what God's called me to do. We do it with such a bad attitude. God isn't impressed. He says, "Do you well to be angry? I don't like your attitude." I remember my mother. I never wanted to help my mother. I was a very selfish child. My father was sitting by a big fire—we didn't have central heating and it was warm and cozy and I was reading a book—and he looks up at me and he says, "Go and help your mother in the kitchen."

I didn't want to. I arrived next to my mother like a small tornado with a bad attitude. She took one look at my face and said, "I'd rather do without your help with a face like that. Get out of the kitchen." I got out of the kitchen but I didn't dare go back into the lounge. I stood in the freezing cold in the hall waiting till I thought my father would figure I'd helped her and it was time I could come back.

I went back whistling and picked up my book and he looked up and said, "Why you back so soon? Have you been helping your mother?" I sort of mumbled something. He said, "Go and help your mother." I finished up in the hall again. Now I didn't dare go back to mother. It was the most miserable experience of my life. You know what I love about God? He doesn't want us standing in the hall.

He wants to see us delighting in helping mother or doing whatever it is that he wants us to do. Doing whatever Daddy wants us to do. Are you rejoicing or are you resisting? Are you doing the will of God with a bad attitude? If you're going to delight in the will of God, you've got to let God do something about that heart of yours. Just come home to the will of God.

Home is the will of God for the child of God. We need to discover the will of God, we need to do the will of God, practically find out the little micro bit that I have to decide. Then we have to do it and delight in it. Just delight in it. That's what he's after. How do I know that Jonah changed his mind, started to delight in the will of God? He wrote the book. It's his testimony.

Didn't need to put chapter 4 in, didn't show him up in a very good light, did it? Whether he wrote it personally or gave it to somebody to write, it's his story. He just didn't put on the end: "So I came to rest in the will of God and delight in the will of God." I believe that's what happened. I would like to think that's what's going to happen in every one of our lives.