Book Review: Just Do Something by Kevin DeYoung
April 22, 2020
Ask a pastor what people seek counsel in the most and they will likely tell you that people are always curious and invested in what the will of God is for their lives. People want to know what God has planned for them and they fear committing to a decision that it is not part of the will of God. If I were a pastor and someone were to ask me that question I would simply walk over to my bookshelf and grab “Just Do Something” by Kevin DeYoung. Easily readable in one or two sessions, the tiny book packs a wallop of biblical guidance in a way that is easy to understand and theologically rich.
For starters, DeYoung has to explain the three different “wills” the Bible is referring to or that people talk are seeking. There’s the will of decree, which is “what God has ordained. Everything that comes to pass us according to God’s sovereign decree. And all that HE decrees will ultimately come to pass… In other words, what God wills, will happen, and what happens is according to God’s will.” Yes, all the world’s suffering, the sun setting, Jesus dying on the cross, His resurrection, and eventual return, it is part of the will of decree. This is the will that Ephesians 1:11 refers to when it says “In him we have obtained an inheritance, having been predestined according to the purpose of him who works all things according to the counsel of his will,”
Next he introduces the concept of God’s will of desire, which “refers to what God has commanded – what He desires from His creatures. If the will of decree is how things are, the will of desire is how things ought to be.” God may decree that a person is to get married, but His desire is for us to be faithful within that, knowing that we can either be faithful or not.
What people are commonly referring to is the will of direction. People want to know where God wants them to go and who to go with. They want to know the answers before they even get to the question. DeYoung spends the rest of the book guiding us through sound decision making, showing us biblically how to make a decision and then insists that we don’t rely on the subjective feelings we have but rather rely on the wisdom outlined in Scripture.
“Read and Renew, Huddle Up, and then Act” – essentially that’s what DeYoung advises. We renew our minds by reading God’s word, we seek wise counsel, and we evaluate the situation and then act according to the Scripture. We can pray for clear eyes and pure motivations, but really the decision is up to us. If someone offers us a spot on their bank robbing team, then obviously that isn’t the will of God because the will of God isn’t for us to sin. But if we’re offered a job in Cleveland and we’re not sure if we are to take it, we can just seek wise counsel, look to Scripture, trust God in our decision, and be faithful no matter what we decide.
People spend lifetimes wondering what the will of God is for them, but DeYoung simply advises us in these situations to act in accordance with the Scriptures and sound logic and live in whatever situation we end up in faithfully. Young people seem to be constantly going through an identity crisis in trying to figure out what to do with their lives and I honestly believe that DeYoung’s short but powerful book is just the thing they need to ease their nerves.
Landen believes the human experience longs to be expressed; through our art, our labor, our songs, our storytelling. As a published playwright, author, and poet, he enjoys expressing his little chapter of the human experience through his writings and is thankful that the SA blog allows him to do that. He is published in numerous magazines, literary journals, and has several plays published by Off the Wall Plays, an online play publishing house.