googling God’s Will: Why Keep Searching for It When It’s Not Lost?

by on August 28, 2020
➡ Average Reading Time: 4 minutes

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goggling God’s WillTired of googling God’s Will in all the wrong places? It’s a habit that consumes valuable time and often produces tragedy and frustration instead of fulfillment. Can you really find something, in this case, the will of God, which is not lost?

The whole concept of “searching” suggests that something is lost, but is it really? What should you do? Stop “googling God’s Will” and spend that precious time living into it. It’s doable and the aim of this book is to dispel some of the theological sacred cows about the will of God and help you learn a new way of thinking and reflecting that can free you up to live into his will.

Asking questions is often at the root of learning, but asking the wrong questions takes us on a journey along a path to nowhere. Have you ever asked questions like:

  • Does God have a “perfect or permissive will” for my life?
  • Can I “put out a fleece” to discover his will?
  • How does the Spirit interact with me in living into the will of God?

The bottom line: well, you will have to read googling God’s Will to see what this book offers as possible solutions.

googling God’s Will: Why Keep Searching for It When It’s Not Lost?
by Winn Griffin

Copyright © 2011 by Winn Griffin.
All Rights Reserved. Worldwide.

Published by:
Harmon Digital Press
The eBook Imprint of Harmon Press
Woodinville, WA 98077

ISBN-978-1-935959-00-7

Library of Congress 2010919399

All rights reserved solely by the author. The author guarantees all contents are original and do not infringe upon the legal rights of any other person or work. No part of this publication may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means mechanical or electronic, including photocopying and recording, or by any information storage and retrieval system, without permission in writing from author except by a reviewer who may quote brief passages in a review. The views expressed in this book do not necessarily represent those of Harmon Press or one of its Imprints.

Google.com is a registered trademark of Google Inc. All other trademarks are the property of their respective owners.

This book is not written, published, or endorsed by Goggle.com or any of its affiliates.

Scripture quotations, unless otherwise noted, are from The Holy Bible, New International Version®, NIV® Copyright © 1973, 1978, 1984, 2010 by Biblica, Inc.™ Used by permission. All rights reserved worldwide.

Cover Design by Harmon Press

Dedication
To Donna Faith, Jason Jonathan, and Jeramie Joy.
My most favorite people in the world.

Acknowledgments
I am completely convinced that communities do influence. Such has been the case in the writing of this book. I am thankful for the friends who read this manuscript and influenced me to sharpen it up. Of course, they are not responsible for the final content. I bear the responsibility of the thoughts that I have written here: some they agree with and some they would disagree with. So I take this opportunity to say a heartfelt thanks to: Roy Conwell, Jamie Greene, Mark Miller, and Rose Madrid-Swetman, Friends and Doctors All! Finally, a special “shout out” for Lisa San Martin for her suggestion of making the title current to the present use of the word “google.”

Power Steering, GPS, or googling?
Chapter 1: God’s Grand Narrative
Chapter 2: Guidance on Guidance
Chapter 3: Sacred Cows
Chapter 4: We Think Differently
Chapter 5: The Many Faces of the Will of God
Chapter 6: An Alternative Way of Thinking
Chapter 7: Guidance by the Spirit
Chapter 8: It’s a Marathon Not a Sprint

Works Cited

A-s, “How Many Advertisements Is a Person Exposed to in a Day?,” 2010 http://ams.aaaa.org/eweb/upload/faqs/adexposures.pdf (August 25).

Bakke, Ray. A Theology as Big as the City. Downers Grove, IL: InterVarsity Academic.

Bruce, F. F. The Book of the Acts. Grand Rapids, MI: William B. Eerdmans Publishing Company.

Chesterton, G. K., “Wisdom of Father Brown,” http://www.ccel.org/c/chesterton/wisdom/prplewig.html (accessed November 11 2010).

Cookies, Scripture, “About,” http://www.scriptcookie.com/about/ (accessed August 25 2010).

Grace and Truth Ministries, “Messages Upon Request 2501-2682,” http://www.graceandtruth.net/Message-Request/messages-upon-request-2501-2682 (accessed August 25 2010).

Griffin, Winn, “Conservative Christianity Telling the Wrong Story,” http://drwinn.com/2007/04/10/conservative-christianity-telling-the-wrong-story/ (accessed November 23 2010).

________. God’s Epic Adcenture. Woodinville, WA: Harmon Press, 2007.

________. God’s Epic Adventure. Woodinville, WA: Harmon Press, 2007.

________, “Exegesis, Eisegesis, and Fractalgesis or Fractagesis,” http://drwinn.com/2008/07/27/exegesis-eisegesis-and-fractalgesis-or-fractagesis/ (accessed November 20 2010).

________. googling for God’s Will: Why Keep Searching for It When It’s Not Lost? Woodinville, WA: Harmon Press, 2010.

Guenther, Margaret. Holy Listening: The Art of Spiritual Direction. Cambridge, MA: Cowley Publications, 1992.

Iacocca, Lee. Iacocca. New York, NY: Bantam Books, 1985.

Kraft, Charles H. Christianity in Culture. Maryknoll, NY: Orbis Books, 1979.

Lacey, D. R. De. “The Language and Imagery of George Caird.” Vox Evangelica 13 (1983): 81.

Ladd, George. The New Testament and Criticism. Grand Rapids, IL: William B. Eerdmans Publishing, 1967.

McKnight, Scott. The Blue Parakeet: Rethinking How You Read the Bible. Grand Rapids, MI: Zondervan Publishing House, 2008.

Nida, Eugene A. Customs and Cultures: Anthropology for Christian Missions. New York, NY: Harper and Row, 1954.

Northridge, California State University, “The Sourcebook for Teaching Science,” http://www.csun.edu/science/health/docs/tv&health.html (accessed August 25 2010).

Rogers, Jack. Confessions of a Conservative Evangelical. 2nd Edition. Louisville, KY: Westminster John Knox Press, 2001.

Sire, James W. The Universe Next Door. Downers Grove, IL: InterVarsity Press, 1976.

Sweet, Len, “On Spiritual Directors,” October 18, 2010.

White, John. The Fight: A Practical Handbook to Christian Living. Downers Grove, IL: InterVarsity Press, 1976.

Wikipedia, “Chick Hearn,” http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chick_Hearn (accessed November 16 2010).

________, “Gang Busters,” http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gang_Busters (accessed November 24 2010).

________, “The Shadow,” http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Shadow (accessed November 24 2010).

________, “Television Advertisement,” (accessed August 25 2010).

Wright, Christopher J. H. The Mission of God. Downers Grove, IL: InterVarsity Press, 2006.

Wright, N. T. The New Testament and the People of God. Minneapolis, MN: Augsburg Fortress Publishers, 1992.

End of Session
 

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Read Me First

 

Throughout these sessions, I have used the word ecclesia (singular) for the usual word church and ecclesiae (plural) to indicate a church in a particular geographic place, i.e., the ecclesiae at Corinth, meaning the whole of the many smaller ecclesia that met in homes in Corinth. This is to distinguish between the Institutional Church model (IC) and ecclesia that meet in cities and towns around the world. The ecclesiae written about by the authors of the Second Testament were not the same as what the “church” has become over the years of its existence. Usually, but not always, folks think of a church as a place where they go to a building and set in rows of pews and listen to music and sometimes sing and listen to sermons by a pastor or senior pastor. The ecclesiae of the Second Testament time did not invoke this model.

 

I have discovered over the years that if you want to try and change minds about something special, you have to venture out and reword it in order to grasp a foothold for a new refreshed understanding of the idea presented by the word. Such is the case between "church" and "ecclesia."

 

Happy Reading!

Read Me Second

 

Referenced verses in the text of this study are not used to prove some point of view. They are merely markers where the subject matter is referenced by other books and authors. To gain a larger view of each quote, a serious student of the Holy Writ would take the time to view the reference and see what the background is. The background provides tracks on which the meaning of a text rides. So knowing the context of a referenced passage would help the reader to gain a more thorough understanding of an author than just the words quoted and marked by a verse number that was not a part of the original author's text, which as you might remember was performed on the text in a random fashion many years later.

 

Happy Reading!

Read Me Third

 

The verses that are referenced in these sessions are not meant to prove a point. They are simply pointers to where the idea being written about may have a correlation. In order to see if they accomplish the thesis presented by the original author, a student should read, at a minimum, the chapter in which the verse is found as well as trying to ascertain what the original author may have meant to say to the original audience.

 

Of course, this is a lot of work but it is beneficial work. If one does not understand what the author meant when it was written and the audience could not have understood by what was written, then the words on the page can mean anything that a present reader may assign as a meaning, thus distorting what God was inspiring for the original writer to write to the original audience to hear.

A great and recent book by N.T. Wright and Michael F. Bird entitled The New Testament in Its World would be a wonderful addition to your reading helps.

 

Happy Reading!

Jesus Followers

 

There are many synonyms to use for the word believer, which is the most common word for a person who has "converted" to follow Jesus. I have chosen "Jesus follower(s) or follower(s) of Jesus instead of the word believer in these presentations to allow the reader an opportunity to move away from the idea of believer which conjures up the possible thought of "ascent" to a set of doctrines that have been assembled by different groups over the centuries and show up in this day and age as a set of statements posted on web sites and other written material. These sets of beliefs are suggested by many as the ones that one should ascent to so that upon death the one who assents can go to heaven, i.e., just believe and you are good to go. Jesus followers/followers of Jesus suggest an action that one should take. Remember, Jesus told his disciples to follow him. Yes, belief is important, but one must move beyond belief to action.

 

(See "Discipleship" Dictionary of Jesus and the Gospels. 182-188.)