Book: A Compact Guide to Discovering God's Will

Book Reviews

A Compact Guide to Discovering God's Will

By Gordon S. Jackson
(Colorado Springs: Navpress, 2001, 200 pp. $9.00)

Reviewed by Angela R. Treadway
November 30, 2001

First, let me say this book is mistitled. It is a "how to" book about the process of making "godly" decisions, which is not necessarily the same thing as "discovering God's will."

Secondly, the author (self-admittedly) makes the assumption that the reader already is a mature Christian who takes prayer seriously and has learned to submit to the authority of Scripture. As Jackson states in the introduction, "You earnestly seek God's will for your life, not His seal of approval for what you plan to do anyway." If the reader cannot accept that Scripture is God's authoritative Word for our lives as a basic starting point, there is no need to delve further into this book. One might argue that a mature Christian who already has the spiritual skills the author believes are required to discover God's guidance really has no need of this book. "Ninety-nine percent of the time we already know God's will, and the problem is just living it out…," he writes.

Jackson has labeled the core elements of his decision-making method "The Big Five." They (in order of importance) are:

Scriptural guidelines.
Prayer.
The advice of other Christians.
The circumstances we face.
A sense of inner peace about our decision.

These are just the starting points for godly decision making. Jackson touches on 62 principles (such as listening, ambition, calling, testing, waiting, choices, humility, mixed motives, obedience), frequently using open-ended questions as a means of instigating the reader's thought and analytical process.

He emphasizes the use of intellect and downplays emotion as we face individual choices. "We don't serve a mindless God, and He expects us to mirror that part of His character by using our intellect to think through questions of guidance…. Intuition and feelings have a part to play in the guidance process, but the more you prize them the less value they have." In particular, he discourages seeking signs and wonders. "God normally works in ordinary ways to tell us what He wants us to know; seeking the extraordinary reflects our lack of faith, not its depth." Likewise, Jackson cautions against bringing "trivial" choices to God (such as which pair of socks to wear), and warns against placing a "self-deceiving" value on the importance of coincidences.

With few exceptions, most of Jackson's statements are common-sensical and non-specific. He uses remarkably few real-life examples and, instead, paints with very broad brush strokes. "The generalizations presented here are distilled from the wisdom of numerous thoughtful writers on this topic. In essence, the thoughts in this book are not new," he explains. This is certainly true. The book is generously sprinkled (nearly every page) with quote boxes and excerpts from work by other authors.

Perhaps the most enlightening part of this book is contained in a section titled "Implications of Knowing God's Will," which includes a quote by Mike Yaconelli: "The real issue in life is not the search for God's will, it is the search for God. The issue in faith is not knowing what God is doing, rather it is knowing that God knows what he is doing. The issue of faith is seeking God's presence, not God's plan for my life, because there is no plan outside of my knowing him. We don't need to know the will of God, we only need to know God - which is, strangely enough, his will."

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