"How do I know what God wants me to do?"

Especially around career choices, Christians often feel like they're on their own when it comes to knowing where God wants to use them. Many get stuck in the fork of the road because they're waiting for some magic sign that assures them they're headed the right way. Especially in our Western culture, this rarely comes.** Others never bother to consider God and spend their lives doing what they want, with little impact in God's economy and less respect from Him.

So how do we sort through key decision-making moments in our working lives? Consider this template:

1. Ask yourself if your choices violate any of the principles of Scripture. If the answer is yes, then you have your answer already. This may sound simple, but among the most common counseling complaints I hear as a chaplain is "...I know the Bible says no, but it feels like the right thing to do!" God's Word is as practical and applicable in today's workplace as it was in the workplaces of the day it was written, and anything that violates those principles gets a hearty "no" from God.

2. Has God already made it clear what He wants you to do and you're simply ignoring Him or running away from Him? God is not the author of confusion (that's how the Bible refers to Satan), and He doesn't play head games with us. If He intends to use us in a specific way, He will make that way known to us if we're honestly seeking Him. If you study the lives of Moses, Jonah, Jacob, Joseph and others, you'll see that when God decides to use us in a specific manner, He will make it clear. If He has, then all the wrestling and rationalizing in the world won't change His course. We can either go willingly (Joseph) or go the hard way (Jonah).

3. Since God is most interested in being in relationship with us (remember "The Reason We Exist"), His heart is pleased when we seek to be faithful to Him. So, if we've passed the first and second tests in our decision-making process and are still free to choose, next we need to ask: "Is my heart's desire to be a faithful and useful servant?" If the answer is yes to that question, then if you go right, God will bless you in that direction, or if you go left, God will also bless you in that direction. Remember its fellowship and faithful hearts He desires even more than service. (For an example of this in Scripture, see Genesis 13:5-9, where Abram lets Lot pick which direction to go, even though Abram had God's promise of a blessing.) (Remember, though, that blessings are not always measured in material wealth or success. Those who teach such things abuse Scripture!)

4. What if God is silent? God's silence almost always means one thing: We already have all the information we need to make a decision. Either it's available to us in His Word and we've chosen to ignore it (as the Jewish leaders of New Testament times did when Jesus came as the Messiah), or we haven't equipped ourselves to be able to test what we hear because of our Biblical illiteracy (as the Israelites did again and again during the time of the Judges), or we're looking for a sign (which Jesus downplays as evidence of weak faith.)

5. God also uses common sense and circumstance to present us with His answers, but we have to be careful here because we often let what's best for us govern our decision instead of what's best for our faithfulness to God.

6. What if we don't know our Bibles well enough to test what we think we're hearing from God? The beauty of God is His ability to see our failures ahead of time and to plan for them. In this case, Scripture tells us to seek the counsel of godly older men and women. Most working Christians I know do a good job of asking for advice from older, wiser workers. The mistake they often make, though, is in asking older, wiser workers with little knowledge of Scripture. It is not nearly enough that our counselors are wise in the ways of commerce, they must also be wise in the ways of Scripture. Otherwise, the advice they offer is based on what seems best to them, and not on whether it's consistent with Scripture or in line with how God wants to use us.

7. This then opens another door for workplace counsel. If one of the most important aspects of decision-making is testing the options against the Word of God, then the counsel of pastors takes on new value.

--Randy Kilgore

**(I say "western culture" because there are still many places in the East where it is difficult to have easy access to God's written word. Because God will be known to His people, in those places it is logical and reasonable to assume He will act supernaturally with greater frequency than He does in the place where He's made His Word readily available to us. Western Christians have ready access to Scripture, and thus to the primary way God reveals Himself and His will. That we choose not to study it is one of the primary reasons we don't know Him or His will.)