Seek God’s Heart, Not Just His Will

God has a purpose for your life. He has a purpose for my life. He wants us to find it and fulfill it—not simply to know that a purpose exists somewhere out there, but to bring it down here, write it down, give it shape, and live it out. Today I want to give you five keys that will help you on the road of finding and fulfilling that purpose. But let me warn you: the last one may change everything you thought you knew about how to walk with God.

## The Map Needs a Guide

The Bible is full of promises. God gives His children promises because He loves them and He wants to bless them. The Old Testament centres primarily around the nation of Israel, and God had a purpose for that nation. He wanted Israel to be rich, prosperous, joyful, abundant. He gave them a land flowing with milk and honey. He gave them His Word, full of promises. But it was not a case of simply going in and living the good life.

God had a specific plan for Israel. He wanted them to be a nation of priests—literally to pray for the world. Every year, Israel would offer seventy bulls for the nations of the world. If you read Genesis 10 and 11, after the Tower of Babel, the world was divided into seventy nations [VERIFY: seventy bulls sacrificed annually for the nations—confirm source]. Israel had a calling to be a living testimony so that the surrounding nations could look and say, “That is what it looks like to walk with God.”

People like the Queen of Sheba would travel great distances to witness it firsthand. Israel carried the Word of God—they were the only nation to possess the Torah, the book with light and life in it. Israel carried the presence of God—every other nation had a temple filled with idols, but Israel had a temple with God in it, the Shekinah glory dwelling in the Holy of Holies. Israel also had the calling to bring forth the Messiah into the world.

My point is this: God had a comprehensive, multi-layered purpose for Israel, and He has the same for you. Finding and fulfilling that purpose is one of the most important things you will ever do.

Here are five keys to help you live on purpose.

### Key One: God Has Both a Map and a Guide

Years ago, when I first began travelling in ministry, I would carry large book-style maps, turning pages and searching for landmarks. When I first came to America about twenty-five years ago, I would print sheets of turn-by-turn instructions from a service called MapQuest. It worked—until you missed a turn. Then you were lost, trying to backtrack to the last instruction you could identify.

The great thing about a GPS is that it does not merely show you the route. It also knows where you currently are. It takes the map and your present location and combines them into something truly useful.

Many Christians are trying to live their lives simply by the map of the Bible. The map of the Bible will only get you so far without the guide of the Holy Spirit. You need both. As Proverbs 3:5–6 declares: “Trust in the Lord with all your heart, and lean not on your own understanding; in all your ways acknowledge Him, and He shall direct your paths” (NKJV).

God’s thoughts are above our thoughts. His ways are above our ways. He has this glorious map for your life. Here is the encouraging thing: even when you mess up, even when you take the wrong turn, the Guide does not abandon you. God does not say, “You have blown it—let Me start with someone else.” He will recalibrate, adjust, and begin again with you.

### Key Two: Our Choices Are More Influenced Than We Realize

“Train up a child in the way he should go, and when he is old he will not depart from it” (Proverbs 22:6 NKJV). I believe in free will. I believe I can choose to lift my Bible up, and I can choose to put it down. But I also believe that right now, a thousand factors in my life are exerting influence in ways I am not fully aware of. Gravity pulls my Bible to the floor if I release it. The culture I live in, the weather I experience, the habits I have formed—a million different variables are at work.

Some of these influences are harmless. Some are fine. But some of them end up overriding God’s plans for your life. They have already predetermined decisions for you that God does not want you to take. I believe we are on a journey as believers of moving away from the world unconsciously making our decisions for us and moving into the plans of God with our eyes open.

### Key Three: Living on Purpose Transforms Life

“Whatever your hand finds to do, do it with your might; for there is no work or device or knowledge or wisdom in the grave where you are going” (Ecclesiastes 9:10 NKJV). God wants us to live with intention. I do not care how blessed you are—your life will begin to fall apart if you do not know the purpose of God for it. You will end up running after small things, then foolish things, then destructive things.

The Bible says David served the purpose of God in his generation, then went to be with his fathers (Acts 13:36). But there were seasons when David forgot that purpose. He was so blessed as king that he forgot he was the leader of the armies of Israel. He let others go to war while he sat back and began looking at his neighbour’s wife—which led to adultery, which led to murder, which led to a curse that cost thousands of lives.

Was David a wicked man? No. He had merely ceased doing the thing he was called to do. When we find the purpose of God and live in it, it transforms every area of our lives.

Let me add this for those who are getting older: I have seen two dangers in people approaching retirement. The first is having nothing left to live for—security, a pension, money in the bank, but no purpose. That is a dreadful way to live. The second danger is trying to accomplish God’s mission using the same methods you used decades earlier. Whenever God gives you a true calling, that calling will last your entire life. But the means, the vehicles, and the expressions of it will change over time. Knowing you have one call is good. Knowing how to fulfill that call in a given season is the challenge.

### Key Four: Partial Vision Leads to an Imbalanced Life

God wants you to understand the totality of the vision He has for you. He does not want your vision to exist in one corner of your life while the rest of your life remains without direction. Many people compartmentalize—they have a vision for their ministry but no vision for their health, their family, or their finances. God wants us to be whole, complete, entire.

The depth of your ministry is determined by the depth of your relationship with God. You cannot truly minister from a script. You minister from who you are. You minister from what is genuinely happening in your inner life. God has a plan for your calling, yes—but He also has a plan for what you eat, how you steward your finances, and how you love your family. Do not have any God-free zones in your life.

### Key Five: Seek God’s Heart, Not Just His Will

God has a map. God has a guide. God has a will. But so often we think of God’s will as a flat, two-dimensional snapshot of our lives—a set of instructions to follow, a checklist to complete.

I remember years ago, I was teaching in a Bible school one morning, and I made the statement that prophecy reveals the will of God. As I said it, I heard a voice—one of the very few times in my life I have ever heard the audible voice of God—say, “No.” I stopped. I looked around the room. Nobody else had heard it. I went back to what I had said. Prophecy reveals the will of God. No?

Then the Lord spoke in my heart—not audibly this time—and said: “Prophecy does not reveal the will of God. Prophecy reveals the heart of God.” He then said something I wrote down immediately and have never forgotten: “You can do My will but miss My heart. But if you fulfill My heart, you will always end up in My will.”

I want you to consider that carefully. You can fulfill the will of God and completely miss the heart of God. The Pharisees knew the will of God. They tithed the mint, the cumin, and the herbs. They obeyed the rules meticulously. Yet Jesus said they had utterly missed what mattered most. They fulfilled the will but missed the heart.

If you engage with the heart of God—the things that are important to Him, the things He loves—you will always end up doing, more or less, the things He wants you to do. But if you reduce His plan to a job description, a set of tasks, a list of obligations, you may check every box and still miss the point entirely.

God wants you to know His will. But He wants you to catch His heart.

Selah.

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**Scriptures for Study:** Proverbs 3:5, Proverbs 3:6, Proverbs 22:6, Ecclesiastes 9:10, Acts 13:36, Isaiah 55:8, Isaiah 55:9, Jeremiah 29:11, Habakkuk 2:2, Matthew 23:23, 1 Corinthians 2:9, 1 Corinthians 2:10, Deuteronomy 28:1, Deuteronomy 28:6, Deuteronomy 28:13, 1 Kings 10:1, Genesis 11:1, Exodus 19:6, Psalm 78:41, 2 Samuel 11:1, 1 Samuel 17:45, John 14:26, Romans 8:14, Romans 8:28, Ephesians 2:10

**10 Questions for Reflection:**

1. Are you currently navigating your life by the map of the Bible alone, or do you also rely on the moment-by-moment guidance of the Holy Spirit?
2. What unseen influences—cultural, familial, habitual—may be predetermining decisions in your life that God has not authored?
3. Can you identify a season where you stopped living on purpose and began drifting, as David did when he stayed home from war?
4. Are there areas of your life that are currently “God-free zones”—compartments where you have not invited His purpose?
5. What does it mean to you personally to seek God’s heart rather than merely His will?
6. Have you ever fulfilled an obligation for God while feeling distant from His heart? What was that experience like?
7. How has your calling remained consistent over the years, even as the methods of fulfilling it have changed?
8. If God were to recalibrate your path today, what turn would He be correcting?
9. Do you know the purpose of God for your life well enough to write it down, or does it remain vague and undefined?
10. What would change in your daily decisions if you believed that engaging with God’s heart would always lead you into His will?