God's Question is Always, "What do you want? Your will - or Mine?"

In considering God’s perfect will, we must start “In the beginning…” In Genesis we read the account of creation - of God’s beautiful and perfect world, the Garden of Eden, the animals, and then of man and woman, made in the very image of God. We read in Genesis 2:7-9:

“Then the Lord God formed the man of dust from the ground and breathed into his nostrils the breath of life, and the man became a living creature. And the Lord God planted a garden in Eden, in the east, and there he put the man whom he had formed. And out of the ground the Lord God made to spring up every tree that is pleasant to the sight and good for food. The tree of life was in the midst of the garden, and the tree of the knowledge of good and evil.”

God’s perfect will was that man would never know evil. Yet, God had created man and woman as free moral beings, with freedom to choose. They both chose the knowledge of evil in their act of disobedience to what God had told them, as we see in Genesis 2:15-17:

“The Lord God took the man and put him in the garden of Eden to work it and keep it. And the Lord God commanded the man, saying, “You may surely eat of every tree of the garden, but of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil you shall not eat, for in the day that you eat of it you shall surely die.”

Nevertheless, in their sin, God did not disown Adam and Eve; neither does He disown us in ours. In Romans 8:38-39, Paul assures us:

“For I am sure that neither death nor life, nor angels nor rulers, nor things present nor things to come, nor powers, nor height nor depth, nor anything else in all creation, will be able to separate us from the love of God in Christ Jesus our Lord.”

Also, in Romans 8:28-29, Paul reassures and comforts us with the truth that:

“And we know that for those who love God all things work together for good, for those who are called according to his purpose. For those whom he foreknew he also predestined to be conformed to the image of his Son, in order that he might be the firstborn among many brothers.”

Despite the natural consequences that we daily experience living in this sinful world, what a blessing to know that as a child of God, He IS working ALL things together for good – not to make us happy, rich, or successful, but to make us like His Son, Jesus Christ.

Just as Adam and Eve had their own free choices to make, every day we have ours. The choice is always between my will and God’s will. The question God always places before us is, “What do you want? Your will – or Mine?”

To Memorize: Psalm 34:8

"Oh, taste and see that the LORD is good! Blessed is the man who takes refuge in Him."