3/19/25 - 2086: Rethinking God's Will for Your Life

Jim: You've tuned into iWork4Him, the voice of collaboration for the faith and work movement.

Martha: And we are your hosts, Jim and Martha Brangenberg, and our mission is to inspire every workplace believer to recognize their workplace as their ministry place where they work with God every day. What can that look like in your workplace? Let's find out right now.

Jim: One of the hottest topics in Christianity today is how do I know what God's will is for my life? It's interesting, as Martha and I listened to a sermon this past Sunday, we realized that statement in and of itself is a selfish statement. Why do we keep asking: What is God's will for my life? When what we should be asking is what's God's will? It's not about us. That much is clear. So how do we turn the conversation to a focus on God? That's the real question.

In our work, what is God's will for today? What is God's will for this hour? Period. What is God's will for this minute? Why does God have me right here? And what is His will in this time period? So that's what we're going to talk about today. We're going to talk about what is God's will. Martha, how does this conversation resonate with you?

Martha: It's actually quite convicting, because I think most of my life, it's been, the question has been, what is God's will for my life? And when our pastor on Sunday was like, that might be the wrong question, then we started talking about the fact that, boy, that really can apply to our work. Because I think a lot of times, and we'll dig into this, we think about what should be my next position, and what job should I have, and what is God's will for me? Rather than how can I serve out God's will wherever I am? So it really resonates with me and I'm excited to have this conversation openly on the air with you.

 (chuckling)

Jim: Live and raw right here with Jim and Martha on iWork4Him. All right. So is it important for us to know God's will for our life?

Martha: Yes, in the sense that it is important to know Scripture. It is important to know what God says is good, what God said is our purpose in life, and in the general sense, and then how do we live it out? What do you think? You look like you're chomping at the bit.

Jim: Because, I don't know, is it really important for us to know God's will for our life, or is it just important that we're just obedient in the moment?

To me, when I'm asking about God's will, I'm like, that's so that I can plan. Because God, if I would just, if you just tell me the next 10 years, then I know what your will is for my life the next 10 years, so I can plan things out, map things out, get the budgets ready, get my steps in place. It just plan things out.

Martha: Okay. So let's talk about what is the question? When you're saying what is God's will , what are you really asking? Are you asking for the answer of a fortune cookie? Or are you asking...

Jim: That was kinda harsh. (laughing)

Martha: No. No, that wasn't meant to be harsh, but I think we do that a lot. We're like, give me the little mystery that I need to uncover or is the scripture - I have my cute little an NLT Bible here with me today - is the scripture full of things that tell you what God wants and what God's plans are in a more general sense? And that's really where our sermon went today was, or, this last week that we're discussing here is what is it that God wills?

Jim: But that part is easy. That's jumping ahead in our outline for the day show, but God's will... is that we know him. It's not that we accomplish this or that, we go here or there. It's that we know him.

Because when we know him, we'll do what he wants us to do. Because that's what Jesus did. Jesus knew his Father. We need to get to know our Father. So that when he says, Stop! Talk to that person. Turn right not left today. I got somebody for you to run into. We hear his voice because we know him. I mean God's will - Jesus made it clear.

We're supposed to tell everybody what he taught us, right? And we need to introduce them to God's rescue plan. I mean God's will is that we're all missionaries everywhere we go. So, why do we turn to this conversation about what's God's will for MY life, because God's will for MY life and YOUR life, technically, his overall will is exactly the same.

Martha: Love God, love people. He's given us some very clear - the Great Commission. He's given us some very clear directives in our lives and how we live those out. I think sometimes we feel like we need... I know you and I, we're planners. We would love for God to say, here, for the next five years, this is what your focus is going to be. But this really drills down to the every day in God's will.

Jim: Every day, or every hour.

Martha: Yeah. And every minute.

Jim: Yeah.

Martha: I'm reading a book, and oh, I can't remember his name but it's the, Looking for the One. Remember we, the radio station in Minnesota, I'm sorry, Mr. Author, I can see your face, I've met you. But anyway, in there, his book, he talks about how always looking for the one that God has placed in your life for you to share the gospel with on that given day. Yes, David MacIver. And he is with a radio station out of Northern Minneapolis. I guess that's the way to say it.

Anyway, I love it because it's okay, God's will is for us to share the gospel with others. So in this book, he's given examples of how. Okay, today, who is God putting in my life that I need to be obedient and listen to the Holy Spirit and walk that out? And that's this shift in the thinking about God's will. It's okay, if it's God's will that I be a living example of Jesus Christ, that means in everything I do.

That means in every meeting I attend, every conference I go to, every customer I talk to on the phone, how am I being a good witness? And that's in our work, some of the ways that it applies. We're always looking at okay, does that mean I should change jobs? Does that mean I should do this big thing? And maybe there is a call that God's put on you to do this big thing, but also every day you're still supposed to be obedient to his overarching will.

Jim: So, there's so many different questions.

Martha: I know, this is a fun conversation to have.

Jim: It's a fun conversation because executing within God's will, if it's God's will for you to do this or that, it should be easy. Things should fall into place. And that's the case most of the time. But sometimes, in order to be in God's will, there's tough things that have to be done. Case in point, God's will for Jesus was that he die an excruciating death to pay the price for our sins. It's that rescue plan that would just eliminate death, the pain of death and suffering on humans, and give them an opportunity to be rescued. That wasn't easy.

Martha: No, in fact, you don't even know this. I was listening while I was getting ready this morning. I'm in Matthew 25, 26, I think 27, in that area. And it was talking about how, Jesus knew what was coming for him in the Garden of Gethsemane, yet he still lamented and said, Lord, I am struggling.

I don't, I'm paraphrasing, but he was physically struggling with what was going to be coming next. And I thought about that, even in terms of this, he knew what God's will was, and he could have just said, okay, let's get it over with. But he, in his flesh still was like, boy, if there's any way, Lord, father, let this happen.

Jim, we're asking so many great questions and I love this conversation about how we can know God's will and what questions we should be asking. And it really is a fun conversation, but right now, let's have a little bit different conversation in our work.

You and I like to be very proactive. Much like this conversation about God's will what do we know for sure in our work? We know from experience that our data and our equipment is very important in our daily work. So from that, we know that it's important to protect it from issues that would slow us down or even destroy the work that we're doing, which we've had happen when you're dealing with all these video files and everything.

So at home and at work at iWork4Him, we count on SaferNet to protect our devices so that our data can be safe. So it might be a stretch to say it's God's will to use SaferNet. But I do know it's God's will for us to be good stewards of all that he's entrusted with us with, and that includes our data and our devices. Jim, what do you think about that approach to even the things that we do in our work that have to do with things like protecting our computers?

Jim: We are called to be good stewards. And, we need to remember. Even Jesus saves. (laughter)

Martha: Oh, yes.

Jim: It's important. I'm an old IT guy. It's important. We live our lives on devices. And SaferNet is there to help us, protect us. SaferNet. com. It's a great one.

Alright let's talk, let's get personal. And when I was thinking about this example, in 1997, Martha and I wanted to move to Florida. We tried, we put our house on the market and we wanted to sell and move to Florida. We had friends that moved to Florida. We wanted to move to Florida. We loved Florida! So we wanted to go. Couldn't sell the house. Couldn't sell the house and what was really interesting, some friends, our friends at that time said, if you move to Florida, all the issues that you have right now will just follow you to Florida. You need to take care of your issues. We didn't really understand what all our issues were. They were a little older than us. And so they saw things that we didn't see.

And in 99, Martha and I bought into a chain of insurance agencies in southwest Minnesota. And after commuting 60 miles each way to work, I said, you know what? I'm gonna buy a house in this little town. Let's just, instead of me commuting every day, why don't we just move there? We put our house on the market. Actually, I bought a house in this little town. We put our house on the market the next day and in 26 days we had sold our house and moved. So moving to Florida in 97 really wasn't God's will because it just didn't happen. And then in 99 God's yes, I want you to get out of debt. This is a step into getting out of debt and that's part of the story I left out. God called us to get out of all of our debt, every bit of debt we were in . And all of a sudden we said yes, Lord, we're willing to do that. Even if it means moving to a small town in Western, Minnesota. And that's what we did and God made it so.

Martha: Yeah. So you said a couple things I want to just clarify. One was that you said trying to move to Florida just didn't happen. I think it's bigger than that for people, or for us. Like doors were closed. We were trying to push doors open that weren't meant to be.

Jim: Like elevator doors that shut. You're trying to open them when they're shut.

Martha: And being really aware...

Jim: we were using a crowbar, even, trying to get the doors open.

Martha: Being aware of that is one thing that in our life, and maybe it's because of our personality, that God's I'm going to keep doors shut tight because Jim and Martha will try to make them open, but then God worked in our hearts because we actually made a financial decision to be better stewards of our money. And then the door started opening for the business in to move. And in hindsight, it's always easier to see where God's hand was, but we can't forget those things.

When we do see where He has allowed things to happen or changed trajectory for His purpose, we can't forget those. We need to rely on those.

Jim: I can think of a couple times where we made some mistakes and didn't ask. Three times we bought new cars in our marriage. We've been married almost 40 years and three times we bought new cars.

I'm a car guy. I used to be a car guy. And I love, there's nothing like that smell. There's just nothing like the smell of a new car. And three times we bought cars, never once did we say, God, is this what you want us to do? And since then we've learned to buy used cars. And we've just seen God's hand in it time and time again, getting great deals on used cars.

But I think there's some times where we just never stop to even ask, God, is this what you want us to do?

Martha: But not to misconstrue that saying that buying a new car is never in God's will. No, that is not the case.

Jim: Listen, what's right for Martha and I, don't make a platform out of it and go, Jim and Martha are saying we shouldn't buy a new car. Although if you're spending a hundred grand for a car today that two years from now, you can spend 50 grand on, read the fine print. You might want to rethink that. Seriously, read the fine print. All right.

Martha: And that goes back to knowing the scripture and knowing what God, as we grow, we, in that instance, Jim, we were learning about being good stewards and how to better control our finances so that we could do the things that God was calling us to do.

Because we very clearly heard from the Lord say, get out of debt so that at some point in time, when I ask you to do something, finances cannot be the reason that you say no. And for a lot of people, that's probably a big reason that they would say no to something because debt or obligations, whatever you want to say. But we knew that we didn't know what the future held, but that God may call us to do something that we would need to be debt free.

Jim: And that day came on February the 19th 2013 when God said I want you to talk about the intersection of faith and work on the radio, and of course, podcast. Could be even podcasting the whole time and Martha and I went and had lunch with this lady who owned this radio station. She tells us all these things then she says it by the way it costs 200 an hour to be on the radio and I'm like that's just crazy that we should pay 200 an hour to hear us talk? Actually back then it was just me talk.

Martha: You weren't hearing yourself talk of it. Actually, It might have been that way if there was no other listeners, that's right? (chuckling)

Jim: And we walked out of that lunch meeting. I said to Martha, this is the craziest, actually, I probably said the stupidest, thing I've ever heard. I said, but we asked God to give us a job where our success in that job could never be attributed to our natural gifts, talents, and abilities.

And we had never been on the radio. We had never done any of that kind of thing. And I said, I think we have to say yes. The financial conversation wasn't even a big deal because by then we were debt free. We didn't have anything. And when the Lord told us on Martha's birthday in 2016, it was a big birthday for her.

Martha: There might have been a zero behind the number.

Jim: There was. That was the day the Lord said, burn the ships. Enough of trying to help me. I'm going to take care of you. Go all in. iWork4Him full time. And again, that would have been a harder conversation, but we didn't have any debt. So he was prepping us literally at that point in time for 17 years.

Martha: Yeah.

Jim: That's incredible.

Martha: And again, like I said, looking behind us, it's easy to see the steps that God took along the way. They weren't necessarily easy, but we had peace about them. And we knew that we were following what God was telling us to do. And so I think that's the thing. Was it God's will? This is that question of the show today. Was it God's will, or was it God's will for OUR life? I believe that it is God's will that all the workers in the world understand that God has you in your work for a purpose. And that purpose is to be the light of Jesus Christ in a very dark place.

And that was God's will for that message to get out. He happens to decide to use us at that point in time. But not just us. Because now, Jim, in the last more than decade, hundreds of people have started podcasts and ministries and discipleship programs helping workplace believers to better understand their mission field that God has given them. So I love how this, it's multifold, but it's not, I think it goes back to the, it's not just God's will for You or God's will just for me, but what is God's will? The WWJD bracelets, what would Jesus do?

Jim: Which spun out of a book written in 1895 by Charles Sheldon.

Martha: Yes, In His Steps. Excellent book. Good read.

Jim: Didn't start in the 80s with the bracelets.

Martha: No, but somebody commercialized it. Because we need reminders. If you remember back in Deuteronomy when it says, Put the reminders on your doorposts. Put them on your forehead. Wear them on your clothing.

Jim: Tattoos! That's what we should have done.

Martha: Why do you think Christian apparel is so important today? It's because we need, God knew we would need those reminders. We would need to have that committed in, in whatever we are doing. So where was I going with all that? It's the bracelet, WWJD. It's not just what would Jim do? It's what would Jesus do? And how do I follow my Messiah?

Jim: This conversation is great because one of the things we've learned over the years is that God cares about the intimate details of our lives. Instead of just asking, God, what's your will for my life? It's sometimes, it's just that still small voice like, pick that up.

Like, why does that matter? Pick that up because if you don't pick it up, five minutes from now you're gonna come back, you're gonna trip on that. I've just learned to listen, not I've just learned, I have learned to listen. And what I've really learned, this is our, I don't know, maybe it's our New Year's resolution for 2025, but I've learned that when Martha says, I really think we should do this, that I'm like, okay.

I'm not going to argue with her, because if the Lord is leading her to say something definitive, I just need to listen, because that's a real change for Martha from when we started dating when she was 16.

Martha: So let's give an example, because I think this is critical, because we have verbally talked about this a lot in the last several months and made this new way of going.

If I say, hey, do you think that we should text your mom and let her know blah, blah, blah? We don't need to have a conversation about it. Yes, let's text her and tell her blah, blah, blah.

It always confuses my mom when you say blah, blah, blah. (laughing)

I'm just using a somewhat generic example. Just that whole idea that it's like, if you get prompted and say, hey, should I invite so and so over? Yeah, you should. If you thought of it then the Holy Spirit's probably prompting you and you thought enough to ask me out loud. Yep, we better move forward on that. So it's been a really good.

Jim: Should you go to iWork4Him.com/jointhenation and read about the iWork4Him Nation Covenant which will help you transform your workplace into a mission field, a ministry place ? Yes, iWork4Him dot com. That's I work the number 4 him dot com.

Speaking of God's will for your life and being a good steward, we mentioned that earlier, but God's will for your life is to be a good steward with the money that you've been given. And he absolutely doesn't want you spending money Investing in companies that are fighting the exact things that he wrote to us in the scripture through 43 authors in 66 books over 1, 500 years from three different countries.

Most of us have invested hundreds if not thousands of dollars in our mobile companies, mobile cellular mobile companies, and the three major cellular companies are so anti biblical values, it's not even funny. We found one that's not. Patriot mobile at patriot mobile. com forward slash iWork4Him. Switch today. Know that when they come down to the bottom line and they show a profit, they support ministries that you and I can be proud of and they don't support anything that we would not be unproud of... yeah, that's, I think I said that right.

Patriot mobile dot com and along the way you'll support iWork4Him through your cell service and the price is the same and they use the same towers that the big three use already.

Martha: And they have american based customer service, which you know, Jim really has an iWork4Him philosophy because they're actually housed in a college, I believe, so helping students earn an income to pay for their college and get an experience with a company that really holds true to their values. So we love Patriot Mobile.

Jim: So let's just ask this question. Can you make a decision and it be the wrong decision and still fulfill God's will? I think the answer is yes. Maybe we'll talk about that in the next episode. But for instance, should I take this job or that job? One job may be perfect for you, but for some reason you don't say yes to that job. You say yes to the other job and it's not as perfect. Can you still fulfill God's will in that other job that maybe might not have been God's first choice for you? Absolutely.

One of the things we get hung up on as Christians , Christ followers, is that a decision we make does not send us off into the abyss of bad decisions. That God works all things together for good, for those who love him and are called according to his purposes. And even if we choose a decision, choose to make a decision that may make life more difficult, we could still fulfill God's will.

Because wherever we are, we bring Jesus and the Holy Spirit with us. We bring Jesus, we're supposed to model Jesus wherever we go, and the Holy Spirit gives us that ability. And our relationship with our Heavenly Father and that communication gives us that ability. Can you make wrong decisions and still fulfill God's will? The answer is yes.

Martha: I think of just a couple examples before we're done, Jim. One of somebody who recently, that we know, decided to not be working in a business that he had helped to grow, but changed his career path to work less, to not bring home work at night, so that he could be more present with his family.

So in the world's eyes, they would think maybe it's God's will that you earn the most income so you can give the most away or get your family the most whatever. He made a decision based on the spiritual well being of his family and being more present with his family, to lead his family. And that took a real listening to God's will to say, You know what? I'm not spending enough time with my family. My career is not allowing that. How many times have we talked to people where one of the spouses has been given an opportunity for a job, but it's going to require this. It's going to require this. We're going to have to give up this. We're going to have to do this. And that's when you start to have to ask yourself. Is that going to draw me closer to what God wants or further away?

And there's seasons for everything. And like you said, even when we make what may have been not the best decision, God can use it in how we live out our faith. So don't stress so much if you do make a decision that ends up poorly or that you feel like you've made a mistake, but ask the Lord how he can help you today to live out his will.

Jim: You've been listening to iWork4Him with your host, Jim and Martha Brangenberg. We're Christ followers. Our workplace, it's our mission field, but ultimately, iWork4Him.