How Do I Know God’s Will for My Life?

It may be one of the most common questions Christians ask.

What job should I take? Is this the person I should marry? Should I move? Should I stay? Should I start this business? Is God opening this door or closing it? Am I supposed to wait? Is this feeling from God, or is it just me?

We pray. We read books. We ask other Christians. We look for open and closed doors. We listen for God’s voice. We examine circumstances. Sometimes we look for signs.

But underneath all those questions there may be another one:

How do I know I’m not getting my life wrong?

If God has a plan for my life, I certainly don’t want to miss it.

But before trying to discover God’s plan, perhaps we need to ask a more basic question:

Where does Scripture say God’s will works the way we have been taught to think about it?

What Do We Mean by “God’s Will for My Life”?

Christians use the phrase so naturally that we can easily assume everyone means the same thing.

Often we don’t.

There is a significant difference between saying God knows my life, God has purposes, God has revealed how He wants me to live, and saying God has an individualized plan containing the correct choices for my life that I need to make to be—or stay—in His will.

Those ideas can become mixed together until we no longer recognize the differences between them.

That is why one of the questions I frequently ask when discussing Scripture is:

Where does it say that?

Not, Where did you hear it?

Not, Who wrote a book about it?

Not, What did your favorite teacher say?

Where does Scripture say it?

Christian bookstores contain books written from conservative, liberal, Reformed, fundamentalist, charismatic and many other theological perspectives. Groups with very different doctrines can use much of the same biblical vocabulary. People can read all of it without necessarily knowing the theological assumptions behind what they are reading.

Eventually, we can accumulate ideas about Christianity without knowing which came directly from Scripture and which came from someone’s interpretation of Scripture.

That doesn’t make Christian books, teachers, pastors, theologians or commentaries bad. Good teachers are valuable.

But they aren’t Scripture.

We should know what we know, know what we believe, and know why we believe it—and not confuse the three.

So before asking how to discover God’s will for my life, let’s ask what Scripture actually tells us.

God Already Knows

Psalm 139 gives us an extraordinary description of God’s knowledge.

David writes:

“You know when I sit down and when I rise up; you discern my thoughts from afar.”
— Psalm 139:2, ESV

Then:

“Even before a word is on my tongue, behold, O LORD, you know it altogether.”
— Psalm 139:4, ESV

Think about what that means.

Before I say it, God knows it.

Before tomorrow becomes today, God already knows what I will say.

David goes further:

“Your eyes saw my unformed substance; in your book were written, every one of them, the days that were formed for me, when as yet there was none of them.”
— Psalm 139:16, ESV

Whatever theological questions we may have about God’s sovereignty, human freedom and predestination, David’s central point is difficult to miss:

God knows what I do not know.

My future is unknown to me.

It is not unknown to God.

And David’s reaction is fascinating. He doesn’t respond by asking God to give him access to that knowledge.

He says:

“Such knowledge is too wonderful for me; it is high; I cannot attain it.”
— Psalm 139:6, ESV

Perhaps we should pay more attention to that sentence.

God possesses knowledge I do not possess.

And I cannot attain it.

His Thoughts Are Not My Thoughts

Isaiah makes a related point:

“For my thoughts are not your thoughts, neither are your ways my ways, declares the LORD. For as the heavens are higher than the earth, so are my ways higher than your ways and my thoughts than your thoughts.”
— Isaiah 55:8–9, ESV

This doesn’t mean we cannot know anything about God. God has revealed Himself. Scripture itself is revelation.

But it does establish an important limitation.

I do not possess God’s perspective.

God can reveal whatever He chooses to reveal to me. But I cannot reason, pray, study or search my way into His omniscience.

Yet sometimes our search for “God’s will” begins to sound remarkably like an attempt to obtain a small portion of exactly that.

God, which job should I take?

What might I really be asking?

Which one is going to work out?

God, should I marry this person?

Perhaps underneath it is:

Tell me what this marriage is going to become.

God, should I move?

Perhaps I really want to know:

Which location produces the better future?

There is nothing wrong with praying about those decisions. There is nothing wrong with asking God for wisdom.

But we should recognize what we are sometimes asking Him to give us:

information about a future He knows and we don’t.

We looked more closely at that problem in “How Do I Know What Decision God Wants Me to Make?”—particularly the difference between seeking God’s wisdom and seeking certainty about an outcome only He can know.

What if He doesn’t give us that information?

What If You Are Already Living the Life God Knew You Would Live?

This question may initially sound uncomfortable.

But think about it.

If God knew you before you were born, knew your days, knew your thoughts and knew your words before they reached your tongue, did your last bad decision surprise Him?

Did He suddenly say:

I didn’t expect that. Now we need another plan.

Did the job you took ten years ago put you onto a version of your life God had never anticipated?

Did the relationship that failed surprise Him?

Did the opportunity you missed force God to revise what He thought your life was going to be?

If God knew, then the answer must be no.

That does not mean everything we do is morally right.

It does not mean God commands every action that occurs.

It does not mean sin doesn’t matter.

It does not remove responsibility for our decisions.

It does not mean we shouldn’t grieve, confess, make restitution, correct mistakes or change direction.

My choices are real. Their consequences are real. My responsibility is real.

And those are exactly the choices God already knew I would make.

Foreknowledge does not require us to conclude that God forced the choice.

Knowing is not the same thing as causing.

But God’s knowledge means my mistake didn’t suddenly create a life God didn’t know I would be living.

That matters.

Especially when we live with regret.

“I Missed God’s Will for My Life”

Maybe you made a decision twenty years ago that you would never make today.

You married someone you now wish you hadn’t.

You didn’t marry someone you wish you had.

You took the job.

You turned down the opportunity.

You mishandled money.

You damaged a relationship.

You spent years pursuing something that went nowhere.

Looking backward, you can now see things you couldn’t see then.

And regret whispers:

My life would have been different if only…

Of course it would have been different.

But you don’t live in that life.

You live in this one.

When we make decisions, we make them using what we know, believe, value, fear, want, feel and understand at that moment. Sometimes our decisions are wise. Sometimes they are foolish. Sometimes they are selfish. Sometimes we ignore something we genuinely know is right.

None of that surprises God either.

Consequences frequently give us information we didn’t possess when we made the decision.

That’s one way we learn.

Responsibility asks:

What do I need to learn from what I did?

Regret can become something very different:

How long can I continue wishing that what happened hadn’t happened?

One can produce growth.

The other can keep me mentally and emotionally living in a life that no longer exists.

The Christian question isn’t merely:

What should I have done?

Eventually it must become:

What does God ask me to do from here?

Because here is where I actually am.

And God already knew I would be here.

Sarah Knew Something About God’s Plan

Abraham and Sarah present an interesting contrast.

God had actually promised Abraham descendants.

Sarah didn’t have to wonder whether children were somehow part of God’s purpose. She knew something about the intended outcome.

What she didn’t know was how or when.

Time passed.

Sarah remained childless.

Eventually she gave Hagar to Abraham, saying:

“Behold now, the LORD has prevented me from bearing children. Go in to my servant; it may be that I shall obtain children by her.”
— Genesis 16:2, ESV

“It may be that I shall obtain children by her.”

It isn’t difficult to imagine Sarah reasoning that perhaps this was how God’s promise was supposed to be fulfilled. We can do much the same thing. We know—or think we know—what God intends, circumstances aren’t producing it, and we begin looking for the way we believe He intends to accomplish it.

From a human standpoint, there was reasoning behind Sarah’s decision. She faced a genuine problem and devised a solution.

But look at the progression:

God had said what would happen.

Sarah couldn’t see how it could happen.

Time continued passing.

So she developed a way to produce the outcome, perhaps believing this was the “way.”

That sounds remarkably familiar.

We don’t like uncertainty.

Even when we believe God, we can become impatient with not knowing the how.

So we act.

Sometimes Self-Will doesn’t say, I don’t need God.

Sometimes it says:

I believe God. I just need to help this turn out correctly—or now.

A $700 Sales Commission I Thought I Needed

Sometime around 1994 or 1995, I was working for a copier sales company.

I was beginning to make some money, but I was still under considerable financial pressure.

I had a sales presentation coming up that would pay me more than $700 in commission if I got the business. At the time, I needed that money badly.

I prepared carefully.

I knew the competition. I researched the differences. I built my presentation diligently. The sale was even included in my monthly sales projection.

But I wasn’t confident I was going to get it.

Sales training teaches you what to do when negative thoughts enter your mind: replace them with positive ones.

I tried.

The troubled feeling wouldn’t leave.

So I prayed.

And prayed.

I asked God to intervene. I wanted Him—needed Him—to be on my side. My need seemed legitimate. My evaluation of the situation seemed honest. Even while driving to the appointment, I continued praying.

About twenty minutes from my destination, a thought entered my mind that stopped me cold:

What if the other salesman needs the money from this sale more than you do?

That wasn’t a thought I would have come up with in a million years.

It was contrary to everything I understood about sales at the time. My job was to win the business. I had been trained to overcome negative thinking and pursue the sale.

It was also contrary to my understanding about seeking God’s will through prayer.

I was asking God to help me get the sale.

I wanted to reject the thought.

But I couldn’t avoid answering the question.

Eventually I said:

“If this person needs the money more than I do, then he should have the sale.”

And the matter was settled.

I went to the appointment.

I didn’t throw the presentation. I didn’t decide that if God controlled everything there was no reason for me to try.

I presented to the best of my ability.

And I didn’t get the sale.

I wish I could now tell you the familiar ending.

The next day I got a $1,400 sale.

I can’t.

I honestly don’t remember exactly what happened afterward. Perhaps other sales came in. Perhaps the financial problem I feared never materialized.

I simply don’t remember.

What I do remember is that it was okay.

Whatever I believed I desperately needed that $700 for did not become a recorded catastrophe in my life.

But I remember that drive.

More than thirty years later, I remember the question.

That is one of the ways I have sometimes experienced God speaking to me—not simply as a thought confirming something I already wanted, but as something completely contrary to the direction I was going, forcing me to examine myself differently.

I don’t offer that as a formula for determining whether every thought that enters our minds comes from God. It doesn’t.

I offer it as something that happened to me.

And what strikes me today is what I wasn’t given.

I wasn’t told whether I would get the sale.

I wasn’t told how my financial situation would work out.

I wasn’t told what the other salesman needed.

I wasn’t given the future.

What changed was me.

Humility, Surrender, Responsibility and Trust

Looking back, I can see several principles being practiced in that car.

Humility: My need might not be the only need that mattered.
Surrender: I became willing not to receive the outcome I desperately wanted.
Responsibility: I still went into the appointment and did my job to the best of my ability.
Trust: I didn’t know what would happen next—and eventually became willing not to know.

That is very different from passivity.

Surrender didn’t mean doing nothing.

It meant surrendering the outcome while remaining responsible for what was mine to do.

And perhaps that’s closer to biblical faith than we sometimes realize.

Are We Asking God for His Will—or for His Knowledge About My Future?

Self-Will has a fundamental problem.

We don’t know what happens next.

We make plans. We use experience. We gather information. We seek advice. We calculate probabilities. We make the best decisions we know how to make.

Sometimes life unfolds the way we anticipated, and we conclude that we made the right decision.

Other times it turns in a direction we never expected, and we conclude that we made the wrong one.

But notice what we are using to judge the decision:

the outcome.

We don’t know the outcome until it happens.

But God does.

And sometimes “finding God’s will” can quietly become a Christianized attempt to solve the problem of uncertainty.

I want God to tell me which decision is His so I can be certain I am making the right one. And that desire becomes even stronger if I have come to believe that following God’s will means things will work out well, while following my own will produces pain.

We can even find Scripture that seems to support that expectation.

“Trust in the LORD with all your heart, and do not lean on your own understanding. In all your ways acknowledge him, and he will make straight your paths.”
— Proverbs 3:5–6, ESV

But what do I mean when I read “he will make straight your paths”?

It is easy to hear:

If I trust God, He will show me the right decision, and then things will work out the way they are supposed to.

And somewhere along the way, “the way they are supposed to” can quietly come to mean favorably for me.

But Scripture never promises that doing God’s will produces painless outcomes.

A straight path is not necessarily an easy path. Obedience does not guarantee that circumstances will turn out the way I hoped they would.

Jesus gives us perhaps the clearest possible example. In Gethsemane He prayed:

“My Father, if it be possible, let this cup pass from me; nevertheless, not as I will, but as you will.”
— Matthew 26:39, ESV

The path that followed led to the cross.

Whatever else we may say about God’s will, Scripture itself prevents us from defining it as the path that produces the most favorable immediate circumstances for the person following it.

In fact, notice what Proverbs tells me not to do:

“Do not lean on your own understanding.”

Yet I can do exactly that afterward.

If the outcome is favorable, I conclude that I correctly followed God’s will.

If the outcome is painful, I begin wondering whether I missed it.

I have taken the outcome—the very thing I could not know beforehand—and made it the evidence by which I decide afterward whether I correctly discerned God’s will.

Perhaps “He will make straight your paths” isn’t a promise that God will make my life turn out the way I think it should.

Perhaps it is an invitation to trust Him precisely because I cannot see where the path leads.

So if I’m trying to get God to tell me which decision produces the right outcome, the question may not really be:

What is God’s will?

It may be:

How can I obtain enough of God’s knowledge of the future that I can avoid making the wrong decision—because He knows I can make one, and I know I have before?

Scripture may be giving us a different answer.

You can’t.

And perhaps you don’t need to.

God knows.

You don’t.

The question is whether you trust Him—and how much you trust Him with this particular thing.

God Has Already Revealed a Great Deal of His Will

Interestingly, Scripture sometimes speaks about God’s will without making it mysterious at all.

Paul writes:

“For this is the will of God, your sanctification…”
— 1 Thessalonians 4:3, ESV

That’s remarkably direct.

God’s will includes what kind of person I am becoming.

Romans 12 connects transformation, renewal of the mind and discerning God’s will:

“Do not be conformed to this world, but be transformed by the renewal of your mind…”
— Romans 12:2, ESV

Scripture tells me to forgive.

To tell the truth.

To love.

To practice humility.

To put away bitterness.

To control my tongue.

To be patient.

To seek wisdom.

To confess sin.

To make peace where possible.

To care about others rather than only myself.

To put off the old ways and put on the new.

There is plenty about God’s will that isn’t hidden.

So perhaps before spending enormous amounts of energy trying to discover what God hasn’t revealed about my future, I should ask:

What has God already revealed about how I am supposed to live today?

That’s where Putting Scripture Into Practice becomes important.

Knowing the principle isn’t enough.

I have to practice it.

Principle → Practice → Habit → Character

That process—how biblical principles move from something we know to something we actually live—is the focus of “How Do I Apply the Bible to My Life?”

What If Things Still Go Wrong?

They will.

Sometimes you will make a careful decision and the result will be terrible.

Sometimes you will do the right thing and still suffer.

Sometimes you will make the wrong decision and have to live with its consequences.

Sometimes another person’s decision will change your life.

Sometimes you will pray and receive no clear answer.

None of that necessarily means you missed God’s plan.

God wasn’t surprised.

That doesn’t make the painful thing good.

It means the painful thing is now part of the reality from which you continue living.

Self-pity says:

This shouldn’t have happened to me.

Acceptance says:

This happened. God knew it would happen. I can be okay with where I am because He also knows what happens next, and I can trust Him with what I cannot know.

I don’t have to approve of what happened to accept that it happened.

I don’t have to understand why it happened to trust God from where I am now.

And I don’t need to spend the rest of my life wishing I were living another version of my life.

This is the life in front of me.

This is where I practice.

David’s Response Was Not “Tell Me the Future”

Psalm 139 begins with God’s extraordinary knowledge of David.

God knows when he sits.

God knows when he rises.

God knows his thoughts.

God knows his words before he speaks them.

God knows his days.

David admits that this knowledge is beyond him.

And then look at how the Psalm ends:

“Search me, O God, and know my heart! Try me and know my thoughts! And see if there be any grievous way in me, and lead me in the way everlasting!”
— Psalm 139:23–24, ESV

David doesn’t finish by saying:

Now tell me what happens tomorrow.

He essentially says:

Examine me. Correct me. Lead me.

Maybe that’s a better prayer.

Not:

God, give me enough information about the future that I can know which decision produces the right outcome—because I have learned to use the outcome as evidence that I correctly discerned Your will.

But:

God, You know what I don’t know. Search me. Correct what needs correcting. Teach me what is true. Help me practice what You have already revealed. Give me wisdom to make the decision in front of me. Then help me trust You with what happens next.

And perhaps that also changes the way we think about the decisions we have already made.

If I believe God’s will is an individualized path of correct decisions that I must discover, then every wrong decision creates another problem:

What if I already left the path?

What if I missed God’s will ten years ago? What if I married the wrong person, took the wrong job, ignored the right opportunity or simply made a decision I now know was wrong? Am I now living some second-best version of the life God intended for me?

Here we need to make an important distinction.

I can live contrary to God’s revealed will. I cannot live outside God’s knowledge.

I can disobey. I can make foolish decisions. I can hurt people. I can suffer consequences and wish I had chosen differently. None of that makes the decision God’s will simply because God knew I would make it.

But neither can any of those decisions transport me into a life God never knew I would be living.

I haven’t surprised God.

That means I don’t have to spend the rest of my life trying to find my way back to some imaginary “Plan A” that I believe I lost years ago. If I was wrong, I can admit I was wrong. If I need to repent, I can repent. If something can be corrected, I can correct it. If there is something to learn, I can learn it.

Then I continue from where I actually am.

This is where I am. God knew I would be here. What has He revealed about how I should live from here?

That brings us back to the question we started with.

So How Do I Know God’s Will for My Life?

Perhaps we have been asking too much of that question.

God has not made us omniscient and won’t.

He has not given us His vantage point.

And Scripture doesn’t appear to promise that Christians can discover enough information about the future to eliminate uncertainty from important decisions.

What He has given us is truth by which we can live while uncertainty remains.

So when you don’t know what to do:

Learn what Scripture actually says.

Ask whether your choices violate something God has clearly revealed.

Seek wisdom.

Examine your motives honestly.

Listen to wise counsel.

Pray.

Practice humility.

Practice surrender.

Take responsibility for what is yours to do.

Make the best decision you can with what you actually know.

And then trust God with what you cannot know.

If the outcome isn’t what you wanted, learn what there is to learn, accept where you actually are, and continue growing from there.

Because perhaps knowing God’s will isn’t primarily about discovering the correct path through a future only God can see.

Perhaps it is about learning to live faithfully on the piece of the path He has already placed in front of you.

God knows the future.