So you have a big decision to make. You might be
considering changing the direction of your career
taking yourself down a new path
taking your company down a new path
selling and doing something totally different
or any other major personal, professional, or entrepreneurial decision.
Now those of us for whom our relationship with God with an important component of our lives (if not the top priority) have been known to struggle with the concept of ‘I want to know God’s will for me’ with regard to any major decision we have to make in our life. Many of us seem to operate as if there is only 1 single answer – 1 single answer that is ‘God’s will’. Many of us believe that God has a specific ideal blueprint for every person’s life which that person may either discern and follow or deviate from and therefore miss God’s ideal plan for his life
I think that that is the wrong way to look at ‘God’s will’.
Let me back up just a bit. Yes, I think that there are those instances where what God wants us to do is crystal clear. Remember Jonah. He was to go to Nineveh. No question about it.
But for most of us, it doesn’t work that way.
Let’s say that you have 4 options in any given decision area.
You know that each decision still operates under / according to your core values – that those values that are in alignment with God’s values.
You have done your research – you know the pros and cons of each decision; and have weighed them.
But in final analysis, none of the 4 stand out heads above the others.
You have prayed about this decision.
And have not received any specific answer.
Then what do you do?
Wait for God’s will to be crystal clear? It may never be. So you delay … you do nothing.
I think we go ahead and make the best decision we can.
Because I don’t think that that’s the way God’s will works. I think God gives us the freedom to choose. Choose 1 – and that will be okay. Choose 2 – and that will be okay. Etc. For “yes” choice 2 might, with hindsight, have been a better place from which to start than choice 1.
But do you not think that your God is bigger than any one decision that you make? If you choose choice 1 … do you not think that God can still arrange things / work things out so that you end up where you were supposed to be? OF COURSE HE CAN!
So make your best decision – stop worrying about whether or not it’s God’s will – and trust Him in the process of walking out your decision.
If you want to learn more about this way of looking at God’s will, let me recommend a book that Stuart Young brought to my attention. It’s entitled “Decision Making and the Will of God” by Garry Friesen. It has been said that “Garry Friesen’s Decision Making and the Will of God is the most exhaustive treatment of the subject of divine guidance that I have read. It runs for more than 400 pages and deals extensively with every conceivable angle of the matter at hand.”
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