Guidance
Are you making any big decisions? How is God directing you?
I recently spent a weekend away on a retreat exploring what happens when we ask God for guidance. As a Christian, it’s important to me to hear from God and understand where He is leading. I like to think I’m on the right track, but every so often I have to reevaluate. Am I living the way I believe God designed me to live? Is my body giving me signals I’m overcommitted? Am I prioritizing the people who matter most to me? The weekend away helped me think through these questions, and also consider how I experience God’s leading.
Life demands that we make choices, ranging from small and relatively inconsequential to life-altering. Studies estimate adults make about 35,000 decisions a day. We make mundane decisions about what to eat for breakfast, when to merge on the highway, how to word a text. And at some point most of us make important choices about where to live, what to study, which career to pursue, and whether (and whom!) to marry. If we have a family, children add a new dimension of responsibility and decision-making. Most daily decisions are intuitive, but some are much more complicated, and there are conflicting voices telling us what to do.
I believe God cares about each choice we make, and is mysteriously involved in limiting, freeing, and guiding us. He orchestrates events, implants desires in us, and offers us the tools and wisdom to make decisions well. I believe this…but how does it play out practically? What tools do we use?
As a teenager, I was given this discerning advice: read Scripture, get good counsel, pray, and obey.
These steps have served me well, and become my pattern for making big decisions. I read Scripture attentively, asking the Holy Spirit to show me what might be relevant to my situation. I take seriously the input of people I trust. I regularly commit to God the choices I’m making (an obvious step it’s weirdly easy to forget). And I try to put into practice what God has already directed me to do.
Even so, I don’t hear a voice from heaven telling me what to do. It’s rarely clear. I often find myself questioning my motives - maybe I’m using Scripture to justify what I already want to do? Maybe I’m only talking to people who will tell me what I want to hear? Or maybe there isn’t one right answer - there could be multiple good options. Other times there don’t seem to be any good options! It can be paralyzing.
On my guidance retreat, the instructor invited participants to share how we’ve experienced God’s direction in our lives and consider what words we use to describe that direction. Is God’s direction a feeling? A logical process? A pattern of events? A word? A vision, a dream, an audible voice? And how do we discern whether the guidance we perceive is reliable? Some of us are uncomfortable with “new agey” or charismatic terms, afraid truth will get watery and subjective. Some are suspicious of dogmatic instruction, knowing God’s Spirit moves in unexpected and personal ways. Scripturally, God uses everything from talking donkeys and angel visitations to advice from servants and fathers-in-law to direct people. It seems like nothing is off-limits for Him!
If you find yourself in that murky place of trying to discern God’s voice, you’re not alone. And this is where He wants you: in dependence on Him instead of yourself. Your fragile faith and raw prayers feed the intimacy God desires with you.
God gave you a mind. He placed people around you, and gave you your specific circumstances. You have His Word, and if you’re a Christian, you have His Spirit inside you. He has given you “everything [you] need for life and godliness.” (2 Peter 1:3). So whatever decisions you are facing, commit them to God and trust that He will lead you.
If you’re afraid of making the wrong choice and causing harm, remember the universe does not depend on you. And if you’re obsessing over a decision because you crave power and control, remember that even well-considered choices don’t mean we take God’s place. Overthinking doesn’t equal omnipotence.
We will never have all the information, we don’t know what God intends, and we can’t change other people or predict all the consequences. But if we ask for wisdom, God will give it (James 1:5). If we seek to honor Him, we can move forward in confidence as He shows us each next step.
And if you need a little help considering a decision, here are some exercises and questions I’ve found useful, including the four steps I mentioned earlier:
Read Scripture.
Get good counsel.
Pray.
Obey.
Make a list of pros and cons.
Imagine saying yes.
Imagine saying no.
What might I regret most?
What’s the worst that could happen? What’s the best that could happen?
What aspects of this decision are up to me? What aspects are outside of my control?
What would I do if I couldn’t fail? If I wasn’t afraid? If I had more time/resources/energy/help?
In what ways would I have to rely on God, so that He has room to show off and provide?
What is my primary motivation? (Fear? Desire for comfort, control, approval? My ego? Thirst for excitement? Pursuing a call or God-given dream? Responding to someone’s need?)
How would this help me love God and my neighbor?
Who would be affected?
Do I feel trapped? Am I trapped? Do I need to make this decision immediately?
If I were my friend instead of myself, what advice would I give me?
If I’m experiencing resistance, is it because God is closing a door? Or could it be I’m on the right track and Satan is freaking out?
How might this equip me for the future? How does this align with God’s priorities and goals? How does this utilize my gifts? How could this make me more like Jesus?
And finally, I leave you with this little poem (author unknown):
Thou shalt know him when he comes,
Not by any din of drums,
Nor his manners, nor his airs,
Nor by anything he wears.
Thou shalt know him when he comes,
Not by his crown or by his gown,
But his coming known shall be,
By the holy harmony which his coming makes in thee.
