To know God’s will more fully we need to study the environment. Remember the environment is also a means by which God reveals His will. When God leads and guides us according to His will, He usually arranges the appropriate environments for this purpose. For example, after Jacob remained twenty years with his uncle, Laban, God wanted him to return to his father’s house. Hence, He caused the sons of Laban to utter words against Jacob, which resulted in Laban changing his countenance toward him (Gen. 31:1-3). Through this, God proved His will to Jacob. The environment is always a means by which God reveals His will and is also a proof of His will. Therefore, if we are to know God’s will, we need to observe the environment which He arranges for us.
Environment is practical and is comprised of many phases; therefore, we need to seek out the spiritual meaning and God’s will from the many phases. The practical environment includes the people about us and the existence of situations with their manifold variations. A Christian seeking to know God’s will should not only study (1) his feeling within, and (2) the Bible without, but also (3) the environment about him. If one learns to study these three aspects thoroughly, he is to a great extent in the will of God.
Beginning with obeying the teaching of the anointing, the spiritual experience of a Christian gradually progresses to a higher ground. When we come to the experience of knowing God’s will, its requirement of spiritual growth and strict dealing with the self surpasses all the previous lessons. If one is still living in the self and does everything for self, it is impossible for him to know God’s will. Since God’s will is lofty and eternal, man must come out of his own little circle and get into the larger circle of God. It is as he is brought into the great circle of God that he will see God’s eternal plan and his part in it. This will cause him to deny the self and lay his self aside in order to fulfill God’s will.
This lofty realization, once it is established in one’s life, will solve all the basic difficulties in knowing God’s will. He can then be regulated by God’s will in his practical daily living-i.e., what God wants him to do and how he should live and behave himself. Because he is consecrated to the Lord and has committed himself to His eternal plan, when he has fellowship with God, he will spontaneously experience the anointing and know what he should do. Then all the feelings he experiences in fellowship with God can be counted as His will. Not only does he study the great revelations and truths in the Bible, but he also studies the minor teachings and principles of the believer’s life and conduct so that he may know God’s will in all things. Furthermore, he always watches his environment and God’s sovereign arrangement of it. After he puts all these factors together, he can clearly understand God’s will.