Sanders on Big Decisions & Guidance

• Be unconditionally willing to do it, whatever it is. It may be that your will needs to be redirected. Be willing to be made willing.
• Be obedient to any light the Lord has already given. If you are not obeying that, why expect more?
• Be patient. The road ahead may not be revealed all at once; it seldom is. But God will show you each step as you need to take it.
• Remember the intellectual component in this exercise. John Wesley maintained, “God generally guides me by presenting reasons to my mind for acting in a certain way”—not feelings to my heart.
• Gather all the information you can about the options that are open to you.
• Seek advice from your Christian parents, your pastor, or a trusted Christian counsellor. However, don’t allow them to make the decision for you. It is your life that is at stake, and you will have to live with the consequences of that decision.
• Ensure that the course you propose to pursue is biblically legitimate. Submit it to the test of Scripture.
• List the pros and cons of the course you propose, and as you weigh them, ask the Holy Spirit to sway your mind in the direction of His will, believing that HE does it in keeping with James 1:5.
• Don’t ask for extraordinary guidance, for that is the exception and not the rule, especially as you mature spiritually. Spectacular signs are given only by he sovereign choice of God. Faith is content with quiet guidance.
• Make the best decision you can in the light of the facts, believing God has answered your prayer for wisdom.
• Expect the witness of the Spirit in a deepening conviction that this is the will of God for you. Circumstances may confirm your guidance.
• Be prepared for Satan to challenge your decisions. He did that with the Master.
• Unless action is urgent, allow a little time to elapse, and if the conviction remains and the peace of God guards your heart, act with confidence.
• Don’t dig up in unbelief what you have sown in faith.

~J. Oswald Sanders "Every Life is a Plan of God"