| Making decisions. How do we do it? All Christians want to make right, God-pleasing choices, but there is often confusion about how to accomplish it. Tim LaHaye's "Finding the Will of God in a Crazy, Mixed-Up World" purports to give down-to-earth advice about decision making, but unfortunately LaHaye's work is based upon faulty premises and bad theology. The decision making model LaHaye subscribes to is subjective and mystical. Since God has a specific will for our lives, it is up to us to find out what it is. To do this we must interpret signs, circumstances, "fleeces" and inward impressions. In effect, we are not so much making decisions as discovering the decisions God has already made for us and following through with them. If we do this, we remain in God's will. If we get it wrong, we are out of God's will and may or may not be able to get back in. LaHaye's Dispensationalist presuppositions get in the way of sound Bible interpretation at times: he has a tendency to draw unnecessary distinctions. Taking a cue from Romans 12:2, for example, one chapter of the book claims God's will has three "levels": good, acceptable, and perfect. God's "perfect" will (often referred to as the "centre of God's will") is where we ought to strive to be; if we make a poor decision and get off-track, we might have to settle for God's "acceptable" will; finally, if we come completely off the rails we might be consigned to God's "good" will (or worse) for the rest of our lives. The chapter is full of examples of people who made bad choices that took them outside even God's "good" will resulting in their living out the remainder of their lives in despair. However, Paul is not speaking of "levels" of God's will, but attributes: God's will is morally "good," pleasing to him ("acceptable"), and lacking nothing ("perfect"). In fact, LaHaye admits a more serious weakness with the model: it is sometimes possible for someone else to put us permanently out of God's will through no fault of our own. Let's say, for example, that my God-intended spouse goes "out of God's will" and marries someone else. Since casual divorce is not an option for the Christian, I can now never accomplish God's perfect will for my life. But it gets worse. Not only I and my intended wife are out of God's will, but her husband, his intended spouse, whomever I marry instead and her intended spouse, and so on, and so on. It's an infinite regression. The proponents of the mystical model clearly have not thought the consequences through to their logical end. Certainly some of LaHaye's counsel is good: he tells us to submit to the Word of God, pray constantly, and seek godly wisdom from others, to pay attention to our circumstances, and so forth. Certainly we should heed the wisdom of others, consider our circumstances, and use common sense when we are making decisions. Where he errs, however, is in saying that godly advice and circumstances are signs that we are able to read and discern God's will through. Jesus, on the other hand, said that we mortals are poorly equipped to read God's will through omens (Matthew 16:3). In fact, I suggest that attempting to find God's will through cirucumstantial signs comes dangerously close to the occult practice of augury or divination, which God forbids (Deuteronomy 18:10). Another sign LaHaye endorses in the decision-making process is the "fleece" (see Judges 6:36-40): asking God to provide a providential sign to confirm that a choice is the right one. In doing so he shows how poorly he mishandles the Scriptures. Gideon did not lay out his fleece to determine God's direction. He already had a direct command from God's angel and a confirming miracle. He laid out not one, but two fleeces out of cowardice, doubt, and disobedience, and was still not convinced. Is Gideon really a role model for good decision making? In another misapplication of Scripture, LaHaye cites Col. 3:15 to say we ought to let an inner peace indicate to us that we are in God's will, that is, "having a peace about" something is God telling us we made the right choice. However, read in context, this verse is saying that we ought to act in ways that promote peace in the Christian community. It is not saying, as LaHaye suggests, that if we make the right choice God will make us feel good. The problem with books of this kind is that they simply do not promote spritual maturity, but a continued spiritual childishness in which we must continually ask God's permission for every single decision. It sets up a sort of "non-moral morality" in which we can make morally right or neutral choices, yet noneththeless earn God's displeasure for deciding wrong, and suffer the consequences. As an alternative, I recommend the book Decision Making and the Will of God by Garry Friesen. This excellent book provides the tools with which one can apply his God-given wisdom and the teaching of the Bible to all decisions, big and small. |
