A spiritually-minded friend of my wife and me recently made this comment: "I struggle with the thought of praying according to the will of God. Since I know that some things are clearly according to God's will, why can't I just pray directly about those things and know for sure that they're going to happen? Only that'southward not the way it works with my prayers. For case, I know that God doesn't desire Christians to go divorced. But I've sometimes prayed that God would preserve a struggling marriage that nevertheless concluded upwardly in divorce."

She, of grade, was referring to i John 5:14-xv in her comment almost praying according to the will of God. 1 John five:14-15 says, "And this is the confidence that we have toward him, that if nosotros ask annihilation according to his will he hears us. And if we know that he hears united states in whatever we ask, we know that we have the requests that we have asked of him."

This seems like such a broad-open promise. Pray according to the will of God and your prayers will be answered. So why can't we simply ask—and expect to receive positive answers—when we pray about something that is God's will?

We tin. 1 John v:14-fifteen couldn't be clearer. But we demand first to respond the question: What is meant by "His volition" in these verses, and indeed in other places where the concept of God's will shows upwards in the Bible? If nosotros can abound in our understanding of the diverse ways that the Bible speaks nearly the will of God, it may help u.s. effigy out how to resolve this legitimate and practical question in our prayer life. Yeah, theology has many applied applications.

Here are three means the Bible speaks about the will of God:

Category #1: God's Sovereign Will

God chooses and orders all that has and always will take place (examples: Ephesians 1:11; Acts four:28).

Category #two: God's Moral Will

God has communicated his standard for correct and incorrect based upon his own holy and righteous grapheme (instance: Exodus 20:1-17).

Category #3: God'southward Permissive Will

Because sin entered the world through Adam and Eve, God currently allows certain things to take place in this world that he would not let in a sinless world (example: Acts 14:16). God, of form, is using it all to farther his ultimate purposes.

Evidently, category #ane, God's sovereign volition (by which he determines everything that takes place), is not relevant to the discussion of 1 John five:14-fifteen since we are not privy to the secret counsel of God. Just either or both categories #ii or #3 could play a office in what it ways to pray according to God'south volition. Praying "co-ordinate to the will of God" in 1 John 5:xiv-15, I believe, is praying according to God'southward intended action, which could be either his moral volition (category #2) or his permissive will (category #3).

When our friend connected praying according to God's will with asking God to stop a divorce, she was viewing the "according to his will" in i John v as equivalent to category #ii to a higher place—the moral volition of God. The logical determination she drew from that connection was that she should be able to pray confidently against a divorce—and God should answer it—since she was praying according to a moral precept clearly stated in the Bible. But she wasn't factoring in the possibility that God's permissive volition might too be at work (category #iii).

Really, praying confronting an impending divorce may provide a helpful case written report illustrating the difference between the moral will of God (category #2) and the permissive will of God (category #three) since Jesus references both categories in his word of divorce in Matthew 19. Jesus begins by tying into the creation narrative in verses 4-5, thus reaffirming that God's moral volition is that people stay married and practise non divorce. Jesus summarizes his comments nigh the moral will of God with, "What therefore God has joined together, let not man separate" (v. 6). This is a reaffirmation of God's moral will (category #two) regarding divorce, that is, people who join together in marriage should not divorce.

But in the following verse, the Pharisees ask Jesus, "Why and then did Moses command to requite her a document of divorce and send her away?" (five. 7) Jesus replies by connecting his answer with the permissive will of God (category #3), "Considering of your hardness of heart Moses permitted you to divorce your wives, but from the beginning information technology has non been this way." (five. eight) God permitted divorce in certain instances—and withal does, such as in cases involving sexual immorality (five. 9)—non considering divorce is in accordance with his moral character, just because in a world that has been twisted by sin in that location are instances in which it is better to allow divorce than not.

How does this relate to praying for someone who is moving toward divorce? We can open up up our hearts to the Lord and express to him how grieved we are that someone we actually intendance well-nigh is seeking a divorce. But nosotros cannot know with certainty that God will answer our prayer that a couple non follow through with a divorce based solely upon our knowledge that divorce is confronting the moral will of God (category #2). It could be that God's permissive volition (category #3) is at play. That is, God may permit a couple to divorce because he is working toward other purposes that are for his greatest glory and the couple's greatest skillful, fifty-fifty if we cannot see it.

Hopefully, the reader has not gotten so distracted by my use of divorce every bit an illustration that he or she has forgotten that this little commodity is about praying according to the will of God. I used the example of divorce for two reasons: start, because it was the example our friend used with us, and second, because it shows that the praying "according to his volition" in 1 John five:xiv-15 is not in all cases identical to praying co-ordinate to the moral volition of God.

This means that although we should never pray for something that is against the moral will of God, we should give assart in our prayers that God may have purposes he is seeking to accomplish by allowing people to proceed in their willfulness and sin. It may exist, as in the story of Joseph, that God volition let something that looks so terribly incorrect in the moment to further his good longer-term intentions (Genesis 50:20). Remembering this might help the states the next time we wonder what information technology means to pray according to the will of God.