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.
Faith
58-0315 §27
...l-fame (living with six husbands), that she went out one day to a well at Samaria. And on the road up, no doubt that she was thinking about ... concentrating. That's why we miss God so much. We're thinking about other things instead of Him. Think on Him. As she was going up thinking about it, "Oh, I'm so sorry that I have ruined my life, but some glorious day the great Messiah will come. And when He comes, He will straighten us out." And while she went up there, she seen just an ordinary man sitting over against th...
Seals 1: God hiding and revealing Himself in simplicity
63-0317M §70
In otherwise, He said in Isaiah 35, I believe, He said, "...though a fool, should not err therein." It's so simple. And we know that God is so great, till we expect it to be some great something, and we miss the simple thing. We stumble over simplicity. That's how we miss God, is by stumbling over simplicity. God is so simple until the scholars of these days, and all days, miss Him a million miles, because in their intellect they know that there's nothing like Him so great. But in His revelation, He makes it so sim...
A door in a door
63-0223 §33
Very unusual. But you know sometimes it's unusual things that God appears in. God appears in the unusual because God is unusual. He does unusual things. He appears at unusual times. And He's seen at unusual times, when ... times you wouldn't think that you would ... He'd be there. Yet He's there. Very unusual. "He works in mysterious ways," the Bible said, "his wonders to perform." Therefore that makes Him unusual. And that's the way ... we get into a usual trend of things and we miss God. It's the unusual that bri...
What hearest thou, Elijah?
59-0609 §23
...with the big church. Do the big things, the biggest crowd, the one that can attract the most attention. It's just born in us to do that. But oh, how we have proven that we missed God. Where there's so much noise... Now, I believe in noise. I certainly do. But that's not it. Elijah knew that God made the noise, but he was waiting for something else. God, let me wait. I don't care who has the biggest revival, and who attracts the biggest crowd, or about the biggest church, or the biggest denomination. Let me wait ti...
Victory Day
63-0421 §29
As I spoke here, not long ago---I believe it was at the Tabernacle---that God is so great, He can become so simple. Now see, when we get great, we can't be simple, see. We know too much. And we got to... Oh, it's just got to be this way, the way we say it, or it isn't at all, see. Well, that way we miss God. But, if a man could ... a great man could just get greater, and greater, and keep on getting greater, what would he do? He'd just become right straight back again to so humble, and so simple, till people'd walk...