Can I Miss God's Will?
1) Direct Answer
Yes—a person can step out of God’s perfect will by unbelief or disobedience and miss His best in a season. But if you truly belong to Him, His purpose will stand; He will correct and bring you back. The Bride will not miss her place.
2) Scriptural Explanation
- The Bible shows a perfect will and a permissive will. “Prove what is that good, and acceptable, and perfect, will of God” (Romans 12:2). That means some things are allowed, but they are not His best.
- Israel wanted a king. God let them have Saul, but said, “they have rejected Me” (1 Samuel 8:7). Permitted, yet outside His perfect plan.
- Balaam pressed past God’s “No” until he got a “Go,” and it led to judgment (Numbers 22; 31:16). That’s permissive will—dangerous ground.
- Jonah ran from God’s will, but God corrected him and set him back on the path (Jonah 1–3). You can detour, but God can bring His own back.
- Not everyone doing religious works is in the will of God (Matthew 7:21). We must do the Father’s will, not our own way.
- For those who are His: “All that the Father giveth Me shall come to Me” (John 6:37). “My sheep hear My voice… and no man is able to pluck them out of My hand” (John 10:27–29). He finishes what He starts (Philippians 1:6).
- We are told, “Be not unwise, but understanding what the will of the Lord is” (Ephesians 5:17). That means it can be known, and it can be missed if we are unwise.
- God’s will is first moral and spiritual: “This is the will of God, even your sanctification” (1 Thessalonians 4:3). As we walk clean, He orders our steps (Proverbs 3:5–6).
3) Simple Clarifying Logic
- If everything that happens were God’s perfect will, there would be no warnings to “understand” His will, no call to “prove” it, and no need to pray “Thy will be done.” The Bible gives those commands because our choices matter.
- You can miss timing, peace, and reward by choosing your own way (1 Corinthians 3:13–15). But if you are His, you won’t miss salvation or your ordained place; He disciplines and restores His own.
- The Bride hears the Word, follows the Spirit, and will not fail to take her place. She is called, washed, and kept.
Practical counsel to stay in His perfect will
- Yield fully: Present your body a living sacrifice so you can “prove” His perfect will (Romans 12:1–2).
- Stay in the Word: His will never contradicts Scripture (Psalm 119:105).
- Be led by the Spirit: “As many as are led by the Spirit of God, they are the sons of God” (Romans 8:14).
- Watch the fruit and the peace: The wisdom from above is pure and peaceable (James 3:17); let His peace rule in your heart (Colossians 3:15).
- Don’t force God after He has spoken: Balaam did and paid dearly. Wait, obey, and don’t press past the check of the Word and Spirit.
- If you’ve stepped off: Repent now. He restores and even redeems lost time (Joel 2:25). “All things work together for good” to them that love God (Romans 8:28).
Short reinforcing statement
Don’t live in the permissive will. Walk in the light you have, and God will make the next step plain. His perfect will is knowable, walkable, and sure for those who yield to His Word and Spirit.
Ask a Follow-up Question
What did the Laodicean Church Age (our age) Angel (- messenger) Say about this?
Ranked passages from the local William Branham sermon and Church Age Book database. Relevance is relative, not a statement of doctrinal certainty.
Trying to do God a service without it being His will
65-0718M §28
No matter how sincere, and what good motives, and what good objectives, and how people want those things, and see the need of it, there is a will of God to be carried out in these things. That's what I want to drive down tight. I want to make this so that you have to see it, if the Spirit of God dwells in you. And that's the reason I'm lingering so long here. Not taking you people's time on the telephone and on the hookup, but I want you to see it. If you run out of time, then get the tape. That there... No matter...
Trying to do God a service without it being His will
65-0718M §52
Notice, now notice. There in following God... Now, I want you to kind of jot this in your mind. To keep God's commandments, to do anything right for God, to do a service correctly, there is five musts, to do God's service correctly. Now, David was doing God a service. He was doing everything he knowed to do, except leaving off God, see. He was doing something that was right, something good for the people, something good for the church. But there's five musts; I want you to remember these. No matter how sincere a ma...
The greatest battle ever fought
62-0311 §59
It must be accepted in the mind; then it's believed with the heart; then the Word of God becomes a reality; then every senses of soul and body is just scoured out with the Holy Spirit. Then your sense of God; your conscience of God; everything that's godly flows through you. There's not a doubt anywhere. There's nothing can rise up. There's nothing can come up in the memory and say, "Well, I remember Miss Jones tried to trust God. Miss So-and-so, Miss Doe tried to trust God for healing one time, and she failed," se...
God keeps His Word
57-0407M §79
Now, Jesus never come to earth just to say, "I will have preachers go out and preach some, tell them about what I done, and maybe somebody will feel sorry for Me and get saved." God don't run His office like that. There God at the beginning knowed exactly who would be saved. Jesus come to save those that God knew would be saved. He wasn't willing that they'd be lost. But to be God, He knowed who would be lost and who would be saved. Therefore He could predestinate ... not predestinate... By foreknowledge He could s...
Does God ever change His mind about His Word?
65-0418E §94
...politics; we're joined to Christ by the baptism of the Holy Ghost. And the way you know the baptism of the Holy Ghost is because that Spirit in you identifies every word of God to be the truth. That's right. "For whosoever shall take one word out of it or add one word to it, his part will be taken from the book of life." Yet he prospered. You say, "You can't believe that by prosperity?" You can't judge God by prosperity. The world prospers. Balaam prospered by it but, brother, you judge God by his Word. He keeps hi...