Just Do Something

Jon Reeves: January 2015 | Highfields Book of the Month

By Kevin De Young - (2009) Chicago: Moody Publishers

God doesn't need to tell us what to do at each fork in the road. He's already revealed his plan for our lives: to love him with our whole hearts, to obey His Word, and after that, to do what we like. No need for hocus-pocus. No reason to be directionally challenged. Just do something.

I am often asked, "How can I know God's will for my life? What will happen if I make a decision, like taking a particular job, and it transpires that this wasn't what God wanted for me? Will I be outside of God's will, doomed to spiritual, relational and physical failure? Or worse, I will miss God’s best for my life and have to settle for an alternative life?"

As you can imagine this type of analytical questioning of your life can be quite exhausting.  Maybe this is you? Maybe you are going through similar thoughts at the start of a new year, where we tend to evaluate and analyse our lives more than ever.

If this is you, or if you are at a transitional period in your life, then can I recommend this book to you.

Too often, De Young writes, God's people tinker around with churches, jobs and relationships, worrying that they haven't found God's perfect will for their lives. Or even worse they do absolutely nothing, stuck in a frustrated state of paralyzed indecision, waiting... waiting... waiting for clear, direct, unmistakable direction.

But God doesn't need to tell us what to do at each fork in the road. He's already revealed his plan for our lives: to love him with our whole hearts, to obey His Word, and after that, to do what we like. No need for hocus-pocus. No reason to be directionally challenged. Just do something.

Keving DeYoung is Senior Pastor of a church in Michigan as well as being an author and is member of The Gospel Coalition. He has a unique writing style that is accessible, witty, and at times quite direct. In this book, he does tell us how God speaks to us and what it means to be guided by wisdom, but his overall goal is to help us hear God telling us to get off the long road to nowhere and finally make a decision. He believes that there are at least two sources that contribute to us being hesitant in making decisions and diligently searching for the will of God.

Firstly, our generation enjoys ‘unparalleled freedom’ where nothing is settled after we leave school and often this life of open endless opportunities brings with it confusion, anxiety and indecision. With everything I could do and everywhere I could go, how can I know what’s what?

Secondly, and more pointedly, he states that the search for the will of God has become an accomplice to the postponement of growing up, a convenient out for the young (or old) Christian floating through life without direction and purpose. As a result, we are tinkering around with everyone and everything instead of taking responsibility, making a decision, and just doing something.

He breaks down the whole topic of God’s will into three areas: 1. God's will of decree – referring to the fact the God knows all things and is sovereignly superintends all things. It is the ultimate determination over all things, and it cannot be overturned. 2. God's will of desire – referring to what God has commanded and what he desires for his creatures. 3. God's will of direction – the crux of what we are really searching for when we ask questions such as "Does God have a secret will of direction that he expects us to figure out before we do anything?" But for the answer to this question you will have to read the book.

I have found this book to be of real help to people in a time of transition and De Young's approach to such a well-documented topic quite refreshing. I really enjoyed the balance he seems to effortlessly command from making me laugh out loud, to poking me in the ribs with a rebuke whilst informing me biblically and intelligently about God will. This book is only one hundred and twenty pages long and so it won't take you long to read and digest. So, if you are going to do something this year, why not start by reading 'Just do something' by Kevin DeYoung.