DEO VOLENTE! A phrase I heard while riding to work this morning. Deo Volente is Latin for God Willing. The speaker was speaking from the book of James and his topic was on “What To Do When You Don’t Know What To Do”. The topic today was on how are we living our life? On our terms or on God’s terms.
The story was told of a preacher who encountered a young man riding his motorcycle to town. When questioned what he was doing, the young man stated that he was on his way to town to sell this motorcycle. The preacher replied “God Willing.” The young man laughed and stated that God had nothing to do with it. It was his decision on selling the bike. “You preachers are all alike. You see God in everything.”
The young man went on his way. Several hours later that afternoon, the preacher was sitting on his front porch and noticed a lone figure of a man walking down the road toward his house. He immediately recognized it was the young man he had met earlier that day. The young man was stumbling from side to side. His pants were torn open, exposing his bloody knees. His arm was in a makeshift sling. His shirt was ripped, his hair a mess, and he had scrapes and gravel all down one side of his body. The preacher immediately went out and met the young man. The preacher asked the young man what had happened. The young man slowly began to retell the events of that day.
“Well, as I was on my way into town, it began to rain. I sped up hoping to make it into town before the storm. As I was rounding a narrow curb in the road, I hit a patch of loose gravel and my bike slid out from under me. I slid 100 feet on the wet gravel. When I got up, I immediately noticed that my bike was utterly destroyed. I began to hobble down the road looking for help. I came upon a farm house. As I walked upon the front, I noticed the lone, scared woman standing at the door with a shotgun pointed in my face. I turned and began to run and she began to shoot. I ran through the woods filled with briars and thorns and got all cut up. I soon came to a clearing where I was able to get under a tree and be sheltered from the rain. While standing under the tree picking buck-shot out of my back, lightening struck the tree and knocked me out. When I came to, I began walking down this road.”
The preacher asked the young man what he was going to do next.
The young man replied, “I’m going home — God Willing.”
Now ask yourself, are you living your life on your terms and expecting God to bless it? Or, are you living your life on God’s terms and receiving all the blessings. Are you including God in everything you do, or just the “hard” parts?
I find myself sometimes using God as a standby. I try to fly on my own. After all, can’t I handle the normal, everyday, easy stuff? I don’t really need to bother God with the petty stuff. He’s way to busy for my day to day routine. 1 Peter 5:7 says: “Cast all your anxiety on him because he cares for you.” Did you get that “Cast ALL…He Cares for you.” 1 Samuel 2:6 (The Message) says, “…He protectively cares for his faithful friends, step by step, but leaves the wicked to stumble in the dark. No one makes it in this life by sheer muscle! God’s enemies will be blasted out of the sky, crashed in a heap and burned. God will set things right all over the earth, he’ll give strength to his king, he’ll set his anointed on top of the world!” James 5:10 (The Message) states: “You’ve heard, of course, of Job’s staying power, and you know how God brought it all together for him at the end. That’s because God cares, cares right down to the last detail.”
How much clearer can He put it. HE CARES about every detail in our life. Therefore, because he cares, we should be including Him in every detail. – yes, even in the small stuff. After all, if you don’t let Him be God in the small details, how can you let Him be God in the large? You can’t see the future. James 4: 13 – 16: “Now listen, you who say, “Today or tomorrow we will go to this or that city, spend a year there, carry on business and make money.” Why, you do not even know what will happen tomorrow. What is your life? You are a mist that appears for a little while and then vanishes. Instead, you ought to say, “If it is the Lord’s will, we will live and do this or that.” As it is, you boast and brag. All such boasting is evil.”
We would do well to trust the one that does know the future and is eternal. Let’s try to live life from this point on under the phrase “Deo Volente”. God Willing!
