God's will for my life is purple

A local pastor came into the office here in Germany today, and we were talking again about decision making and the will of God.  As we were chatting, he brought up some very interesting things regarding the ancient way of viewing the world.  In ancient Greek thinking, there was the idea of things being either one thing or another.  So, something could be either red, or it could be blue, but there was absolutely no way for it to be both.  In ancient Hebrew thinking, however, something could possess two seemingly opposing qualities at the same time, and therefore be equally both.  So to the Hebrew mind, something could have characteristics of being red at the same time of having characteristics of being blue.  In essence, something could be both red and blue at the same time.

Applying this concept to God’s will, many people (myself included) have come to the Greek conclusion that God’s will for my life must be either A or B.  If I choose A, but it turns out that God’s will for my life was B, then I am outside of God’s will, and I want to avoid that at all costs.  This means that I spend all day just trying to figure out if God wants me to be red or if he wants me to be blue (And I usually never get around to being either of them since I have spent all of my time worrying about which one I SHOULD be).  But, if I start to believe that God’s will for my life is more about who I am in relationship with him than about what I do, then I start to adopt a more Hebrew way of thinking about God’s will in my life.  If God’s will for my life is not dependent on the specific details of where I am, what job I do, or who I marry, then it is not A or B, Red or Blue, but it can be either and it can be both.  As my boss said, “If it’s both red AND blue, then it’s purple!”  So, I have decided to embrace the fact that God’s will for my life is purple (and the fact that half of my wardrobe is that color, since it happens to be my favorite…well, that is just a minor detail).  ;)