"God Willed"

We are cautioned by James against arrogance when making plans: “Come now, you who say, ‘Today or tomorrow we will go into such and such a town and spend a year there and trade and make a profit’— yet you do not know what tomorrow will bring. What is your life? For you are a mist that appears for a little time and then vanishes. Instead you ought to say, ‘If the Lord wills, we will live and do this or that.’ As it is, you boast in your arrogance. All such boasting is evil” (James 4:13-16). Some Christians, having taken this teaching to heart, append to their communications, “DV,” an abbreviation for the Latin, Deo volente, “God willing.”

When we say, “God willing,” we are acknowledging that we don’t know what the future holds. That is left for God to know, unless he reveals it to us in some way, such as in biblical predictive prophecy. When we say, “God willing,” we are acknowledging that we have no absolute control over the future. We make our plans but our plans are subsumed, absorbed, in whatever God’s plans are. So we might, for example, say, “God willing, I will meet you for lunch next Thursday.” Yet, God is the one who knows what will take place between now and then. In fact, he is the one who governs all things between now and then.

“God willing.” It’s pretty easy to say and we should mean it. 

That being said, it’s harder to say “God willed.” We are much more comfortable looking forward with expectation than we are looking back with resignation. That is, we map out our plans, or just go about our life living according to habitual expectations, and when something happens that we would never have put on our calendar, its interference shakes us. At such times, we are not given to saying “God willed,” as easily as we say, “God willing.” But in truth, we live in a universe that was not only created by God but continues to be governed by God. So we are right to say, “God willing,” but we must also be ready to say, “God willed,” even when that will includes that which shakes our life.

Though hard to mentally grasp, we are to know that all of God’s creation is enveloped in his will. All that comes to pass, therefore, is never due to chance, fate, or some other impersonal force. Rather, in the words of the Heidelberg Catechism, God’s ever-present power “rules in such a way that leaves and grass, rain and drought, fruitful and unfruitful years, food and drink, health and sickness, riches and poverty, and everything else, come to us not by chance but by his fatherly hand” (Question 27). If this is true, then even the sin of an enemy is encompassed within the over-arching will of God. This does not alleviate the sinner of his responsibility, but it does mean that no matter what transpires, God’s will, which is always good, will be done. 

Theologian R.C. Sproul, while teaching on the sovereignty of God, admitted that if he knew there was one molecule that was outside of God’s control, he would be terrified. It would mean that God was not God because there was something operating outside of his influence and power. Now, if God were a despot, then the realization that something was outside of his control would be good news. It would mean that there was hope for revolution, a change of regimes! But as God is a loving, wise, just, and merciful father, the confidence that he is in absolute and total control brings peace.

This is the perspective that Joseph famously obtained. Despite having been much sinned against he knew that what his brothers had meant for evil, God meant for good. He was able to say not only “God willing,” but also “God willed.”