SPEAKER_02 0:09

The Coaching for Life podcast with Monty Williams and Will Davis.

SPEAKER_03 0:17

Welcome back to the Coaching for Life podcast with Monty Williams and Will Davis, a conversation that we pray encourages you to pursue the Christ-centered life. And as always, it's a great blessing to spend some time with my good friend and co-host Monty Williams. And today, Monty, the subject for our conversation is thy will versus my will. And so often in life we get caught up with self and my plans and what is it that I want out of my life, instead of first asking God, what do you want for me? Yeah. What's your will for my life? So where do we start when this with this conversation?

SPEAKER_01 1:03

Yeah, I think one, it it's it's always cool when we do these pods because of the study that goes into it. Yeah. How much God reveals to me, you know, areas of growth, um, things that in the past I could have done better, uh, things he's been gracious with when I didn't uh hit the mark, um, which we know is the definition of sin. And so I thought, you know, to start, um, we should identify what is God's will for us. Now we obviously we can't cover every single thing in every verse, but you know, we know uh for sure that God calls us to love. And we see this in Matthew um 22, uh verse 37. And he the Bible says, and he said to him, You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind. That is the greatest, the great and first commandment. And the second is like it, you shall love your neighbor as yourself. And so we know that that is God's will for us. We can identify that right out the gate. Um, and then we know that God calls us to trust Him. Um we see this in Proverbs 3, 5, and 6. Um, one of my anchor verses that allows me to lock in on what God wants. Um often uh I think we can get ourselves in trouble um when we look through the lens of life through our own paradigm, yeah, which is you know, my will be done uh for the most part. And then there's a another um identification in Romans 12, verse 2. Don't be conformed. Um the Bible says don't copy the behavior and customs of this world, but let God transform you into a new person by changing the way you think. Then you will learn to know God's will, which is good and pleasing and perfect. And you know, those are just three. Yes. Um there's certainly more in terms of you know God's will for us. And I think it's pretty cool to highlight uh Psalm 32, 8. There's a blessing um there. The Bible says, the Lord says, I will guide you along the best pathway for your life, I will advise you and watch over you. And I think that that comes with the relationship when we're walking in God's will. And as we, you know, one of the stories we'll talk about today, we'll see that even when we're not walking in the Lord's will, he's so gracious to us um and kind. And it's that kindness that leads us to repentance. And so as we talk about um these two things that may oppose um each other, um, you're gonna start off with a a guy that went in the opposite direction and paid a hefty price and and and the guy Jonah, the prophet, that um we've heard about, but you have a pretty cool take on on his life as it relates to this topic.

SPEAKER_03 4:21

Yes, yeah, he is one of the most famous examples uh when it comes to living according to my will instead of thy will. And for the listener, if you remember, God told Jonah to go to Nineveh to preach a message of repentance to the people there. But Jonah didn't like the Ninevehes. You know, he he hated them and he didn't want to see them forgiven by God. And so he got a ticket on a boat that was headed in the complete opposite direction of Nineveh to Tarshish. And Jonah disobeyed this direct command from the Lord. And it says that he tried to flee from the presence of the Lord. But as Jonah discovered, you can't run and hide from God. We we read in Jonah 115 that the Lord hurled a great wind upon the sea, and there was a great storm, and the ship was about to be destroyed, and as this chaos is taking place, Jonah goes up on the deck of the ship and he tells the sailors, I'm the reason for the storm. It's because of me, and you all are about to die because of my disobedience. So throw me overboard, and that's just what the sailors do. And it says that as soon as Jonah was thrown into the sea, the water stopped. They're raging. And then God appoints a fish to swallow Jonah, and after spending three days and three nights in the belly of this fish, the fish hurls Jonah onto dry land. And the Lord then tells Jonah a second time, go to Nineveh and preach to the people there, and Jonah is now ready to obey. And I think we can learn several things from Jonah's example. Number one, God's commands are not suggestions. When he says go, our response should be when? How soon? Yeah. Instead of why or you know, whatever God. And then lesson number two is our do our disobedience not only affects us, but it can hurt it can hurt and harm those around us as well. And then number three, God uses his discipline ultimately for our good. And you know, I was talking to Kara about this topic of my will versus thy will. And you know, I just thank the Lord for our godly wives. And I don't know where we would be without their wisdom and their counsel. And she reminded me of a story from Corey Tin Boom's book, The Hiding Place, when Corey was a young girl, she was asking her father some questions about a subject matter that was perhaps a little too mature for her young age. And her father answered her with another question Corey, when we go to the train station together, when do I give you your train ticket? And Corey answered, Well, Papa, you give me the ticket right before we step onto the train. And Corey's father was making the point when it comes to our Heavenly Father, he often gives us just what we need at just the right time. You know, if if we look ahead and and we think, oh Lord, if I can only see the the five-year plan or the ten-year plan, I think we would trust and lean and depend less on him.

SPEAKER_00 8:15

Yeah.

SPEAKER_03 8:16

And depend more on our own strength and our own wisdom, uh, which is limited. Yeah. And you know, I know there's so many other biblical examples of of my will versus thy will.

SPEAKER_01 8:29

It's it's an interesting example. You know, it's we often want to map and God gives up gives us a flashlight. Yes. You know, and it's it causes us to trust, it causes us to seek him uh in a moment by moment, day-by-day uh journey with him. And the next guy that you know I'm gonna talk about, he he had someone to give him the will of God and and call him up, if you will, and he didn't want to listen. And it's a guy that we've talked about before, uh Nebuchadnezzar uh Daniel 4. Um Daniel 4 uh, the Bible says, I, Nebuchadnezzar, was at ease in my house and happy in my palace. I saw a dream and it startled me. Um this is verse four and five. And these appearances as I lay on my bed and the visions in my mind kept alarming me. So I gave orders to bring into my presence all the wise men of Babylon. And Daniel was one of these wise men, and he interprets the dream in uh verses 19 through 22. The Bible says that uh when he interpreted the dream, he was appalled. Um the thoughts alarmed him. And Daniel um says, My Lord, if only the dream applied to those who hate you. That's how bad this interpretation was. Yeah. And what we see here is God using Daniel to interpret the dream, but also give Nebuchadnezzar his will. And it was God's will in Daniel 4.27. Uh Daniel says, Therefore, O King, uh, may my advice be pleasing to you. Wipe away your sin by doing righteousness and your wrongdoings by showing mercy to the poor. This is what God wanted uh the king to do. And and then it says, in case there may be a prolonging of your prosperity. And this is an interesting um read in terms of Daniel sharing the will of God with the king, because that wasn't an easy task. Like we know from Daniel 2 and 12, um the king had already ordered the wise men of Babylon to be destroyed because he was a violent man when he got angry. In chapter 3 and 19, uh when Meshach, Shadrach, and Abednego were thrown into the furnace. He didn't just throw them into the furnace, he he he turned it up seven times hotter. And so Daniel is faced with this, but Daniel is obedient to the Lord, and he shares uh with the king the will of God. And and you know, the Bible goes on to say, twelve months later, um we see in verses 29 and 30, um, the king was, you know, on his in his palace, and he says to himself, Is this not Babylon the Great, which I myself have built? And you know, he he gets the will of God to change his ways, and yet after 12 months to ponder the will of God, not an immediate change at all. This is 12 months later, he's still in this place of pride. Yeah. And the outcome um was pretty sad, which we see in in uh Daniel 4, 31 through 33. The Bible says a voice came from heaven, and it says the sovereignty has been removed from you. And so Daniel's had told him what to do. He didn't listen, and now he loses his kingdom, and um his dwelling place uh was to be with the animals in the field. And the Bible says immediately the word concerning Nebuchadnezzar was fulfilled. And so this this is a a sad um example, but it's also one that um I think many of us who've walked with the Lord can relate to when we've known the will of God and and gone against it, and we've had time to process it, and then we think we're out of harm's way, and then we deal with the fruit of the seed that we've sown. And it's it's a tough place to be, but you know, what can we learn from this? One, heed the word of the Lord. Um, heed and respect the warnings that God sends to us immediately. Yeah. Um be quick to be obedient. And it's what we ask our kids to do. You know, when we tell them, hey, you know, stay out of the kitchen, you know, your auntie's cooking a cake. You know, back in the day that was a big deal because, you know, if you ran through the kitchen and we had these shaky linoleum floors and the cake might fall, you know, and it always happened. Three or four kids ran through the kitchen to get something to drink, and the cake fell, and you know, we all got yelled at. And it's like you just learn over time, like we better listen. Because there were times where we got more than just yelled at. And so for us, it's it's you know, quickly listen to the Lord. And then number two, uh, he sometimes, God sometimes uses people to warn us of hidden sin in our lives. And I'm so grateful for um these awesome relationships that I have with you, Pastor Bill, and my own wife. Um, people that I know um will pull me aside and say, Mott, uh, look at it from this perspective. Or I've been praying about this and I feel like you need to do this. This is not my opinion. This is uh based on God's uh word and um time and prayer. And then number three, confession and repentance will bring about restoration. And we see that in the life of this king. Uh later on, uh, after a tough time in his life, he did confess and repent. And we see this uh played out in the not played out, we see a great example of this in the New Testament in 1 John 1 9. The Bible says if we confess our sins, he is faithful and righteous, so that he will forgive our us our sins and cleanse us from all unrighteousness. And what a gift that is. Um when we blow it, when we go against the will, when we have these Jonah and Nebuchadnezzar moments that we can, in the belly of a fish or in the field with other animals, um, return to the Lord, um, knowing that he is the restorer, he is the lifter of our heads, and he can do what no one else can do. He can restore in a way that no one else can restore. And it's an amazing thing. Um, I was reading about uh Manasseh, the worst king of all time. And I I don't know why I didn't see this, but when you just read first king, when you're reading Kings his story, it's it's somewhat limited. But when you get in Chronicles, you see the end of it, and God restored this dude. Yeah, and he was an awful king. Now the people didn't change, but he did. And it's a really cool read on God's grace that when we uh oppose his will, when we go against it in a way that's the exact opposite of what he's asking us to do, if we repent and confess and surrender, he can and is and is happy to restore us. And I think that's an awesome thing that we find in our faith. It's pretty cool.

SPEAKER_03 16:01

Yeah, I think as you're talking, you know, God can warn us like he did with with Nebuchadnezzar, but yet we can still do our own thing. Yeah. And and I I thought about Isaiah's prophecy of the suffering serpent in Isaiah 53 6. All of us like sheep have gone astray. Each of us has turned to his or her own way, but the Lord has placed the wrongdoing, the sin, the transgression of us all to fall upon him, speaking uh of Jesus. And I think this you know made me also think of Achan in the book of Joshua. Joshua and the Israelites, they were conquering the promised land, and they had just won this great victory over Jericho in Joshua 6. And we read at the end of that chapter that the Lord was with Joshua, so everything seemed to be going well, but it's in the very next chapter that Israel is defeated in the battle for the city of Ai. And after that defeat, it says that the hearts of the Israelites were melted and became like water. And Joshua, their leader, was devastated. It says that he tore his clothes and he fell to the ground on his face. And Joshua cried out, Oh Lord God, why did you even bring us here? Basically, kind of what gives. You know, why did this happen? When all of the surrounding Canaanite nations hear about this defeat, they are going to eliminate our name from the earth. And God responds, Get up, Joshua. It's because of Israel's sin that you have been defeated.

SPEAKER_00 18:02

Yeah.

SPEAKER_03 18:03

There's sin in the camp. And so on the next day, Joshua brings together all of the twelve tribes and then has the tribe of Judah take one step forward, and then a certain group of families from Judah is told to come forward one more step, and then one man, Zabdi, is selected, and he steps forward with his family, and then one of Zabdi's sons is selected, a man named Achan. And Joshua then stands face to face with Achan, and there's no small talk. Joshua gets right to the point with Achan. Tell me now what you have done, and don't hide it from me. And Achan answers, I have sinned against the Lord. I took some spoils from the Battle of Jericho that I shouldn't have taken, things that were to be designated for the Lord, a beautiful robe, some silver, some gold, and I hid them underground, right underneath my tent. And you can imagine Joshua just shaking his head and thinking, you know, we had to take this unnecessary loss because of you, Achan. And again, that point being that our disobedience and our rebellion can not only negatively have an effect on us, but those around us as well. And sadly, Aiken's whole family paid a fatal price for his disobedience. And, you know, I see that New Testament equivalent in Acts 5 with Ananias and Sapphira. You know, in chapter 4 of Acts, the believers in the first century they were selling their land willfully so and their homes, and they were bringing the proceeds and laying them at the apostles' feet. And those resources were distributed and shared with any who had need. But Ananias and Sapphira, they conspired together to sell a piece of property, but then to keep back some of the proceeds for themselves. Perhaps they had committed to a certain pledge, but then didn't follow through. And Peter confronts Ananias in Acts 5.4 saying, You have not lied to men, but to God. And Ananias collapsed on the spot and he dies. Three hours later, the same fate falls upon his wife, Sapphira. They were more concerned with my will instead of thy will. And and we see a similar mentality from Moses in Numbers 20.

SPEAKER_01 20:40

Moses, um, it's an interesting story just because you just don't think of Moses that way. Um the Bible says that Moses was the most meek dude on the earth. You know, that's something that is you know not said about anyone. We just don't we don't think of people as meek yet. We don't throw it around. Like this is my friend Dave, by the way, he's the most meek guy you're ever gonna meet. Like we just don't do that. And God says that about Moses. But here in Numbers 20, um, we see a direct violation of God's will. Um in in Moses 20 and verse 8, the Bible says, God says, take the staff, and you and your brother Aaron assemble the congregation and speak to the rock before their eyes, that it shall yield its water. So you shall bring water from uh for them out of the rock and have the congregation and their livestock drink. And and this is uh a a concept that we can hit right away. Um the we must obey the details. Yes. When God tells us specifically, specifically what to do, um, we are to do it right away, uh, the way He tells us to do. Do it. Um, the Bible says honor your mother and your father. Like it doesn't say honor them if they live like this and do exactly what I tell you. No, it says honor. That's what we are to do. And we see God giving uh Moses a direct command. And in verses 9 through 11, we see that Moses uh did something that was a little bit different, if not a lot of bit different, than God called him to do. The Bible says, so Moses took the staff from before the Lord just as he had commanded him. And Moses and Aaron summoned the assembly in front of the rock, and he said to them, Listen now, you rebels, shall we bring water from for you out of this rock? Then Moses raised his hand and struck the rock twice with his staff. And so we see this direct violation. God told him to speak to the rock, and Moses struck the rock. And the the cool part is that God still brought water from the rock. And it's, you know, is God rewarding disobedience? No, uh, he's gracious. And he was calling Moses to guide the people into the promised land, and there was a need there. The people wanted water, they needed water. And so we see God being gracious in this moment of disobedience, but we also see uh Moses paying a price. He did not uh get to take the people into the promised land. And it's, you know, I remember reading, you know, you just feel so bad for Moses because you're just like, man, he's, you know, he's he's the guy he's been through so much. And and as as a someone who's led on on a much lower scale, um you understand it to a degree how he could make uh the mistake of of violating what the Lord called him to do because he, you know, he's leading that many people, there's frustration, there's all these people complaining all the time, but nonetheless, when God calls us to do something, we are to be obedient. But it does speak to uh the fact that leaders often pay a heavy price for disobedience. And we see a reference to this in James 3. Uh the Bible says, do not become teachers in large numbers, my brothers, since you know that we who are teachers will incur a stricter judgment. And it's a tough uh thing that you deal with in leadership. We see it in in in college sports before players were getting paid. If there was ever an infraction where a player got some money from a booster or a donor, it was the college coach who paid the price for this infraction. Um we see it in in pro sports where college uh pro coaches and whether it's football or or you know basketball or hockey or baseball, if the team doesn't play well, the coach is usually the one that takes the hit.

SPEAKER_02 25:06

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 25:06

And I've been a part of that. And and obviously we know that's what we sign up for, but I I don't know of any coaches who teach bad things. You know, I don't know of any coaches that show up and say, hey guys, I don't want you to work hard today. Uh you guys, I hope you don't play any defense at all. You three, the shooters, please miss all the shots. Like no one's doing that. And yet, when it doesn't go well, you could be the one that takes the fall. This is a little bit different in that Moses was violating what God called him to do. But it brings up something that I would encourage anyone who's listening, and it's something that I need to do more of is to pray for our leaders. Whether it's the president, you may not agree with what he does or what he says. You may have a different political party, but that God tells us to pray for leadership, uh national, state, local, and pray for our pastors. You know, you and I spend a lot of time talking, and you've shared with me before in confidence, you know, things that you've dealt with, where somebody may disagree with something you say or whatever the case may be, and that's a lot. Um when you're you're trying to shepherd a fellowship uh in a godly way and be obedient, and we all fall short, we all slip up, we all, you know, make decisions not out of hurting people, we just do because we live in this flesh. Yeah, and people like myself need to be in prayer for um men like you who sacrifice a ton to lead and and serve and and also be a good husband and father and other things in your life. And so this brings up a number of things that we could talk about. Moses was uh a meek man, and yet he made a costly mistake, and it cost him a lot. But it also speaks to us when God tells us to do something, we need to be dialed into the details, quickly obey, and and not be led by anger. When you read this, you could see Moses uh may have acted out of anger, but but you also understand, you know, when you have that many people complaining, it could it could bring out your flesh, but he paid a hefty price for that.

SPEAKER_03 27:35

Yeah, I love that point, just for us to obey the details. And you know, as we come to the end of our time, I I think of the Lord's teaching as the disciples asked him, Lord, how should we pray? And and Jesus gave them the model of the Lord's Prayer, and perhaps that would be a good topic for a future Pod, you know, going through the sections of the Lord's Prayer. But Jesus said, Pray like this, our Father, who art in heaven, hallowed be thy name, thy kingdom come, thy will be done. Again, it's it's not about our will, but your will, God. And so let's pray now for his will to be done in our lives and in the lives of our listeners. Father, we do ask for your will to be done and help us to trust and and lean upon you more and less upon ourselves and and our will. Lord, give us the strength to obey you and the details and your calling upon our lives. Uh, Lord, would we walk in faith and obedience to your word and and to your ways? And Lord, we pray for the listener now who uh might be struggling with some of the consequences uh of going their own way down a path that has led to hurt and and harm to them and and perhaps to those around them. Lord, would you bring healing and and restoration in our lives and put us back on the path that leads to you and your best for us and and Lord, as Mani just uh uh talked about, we do pray for those in leadership, those who have been placed in in those places of authority over us, whether it's at the the federal or the state or the local or at the church level. We we thank you for these men and women. We we pray that you would lead and guide them by your wisdom and your word. We ask this in the name of Jesus. Amen. Well, thank you for spending some time with us. And remember, whatever it is you're facing today, know that God loves you, He's for you, He's got a good plan for you, and we'll see you next time.

SPEAKER_01 30:17

Thank you for joining us. Whatever you receive is coming.