Making Right Choices, Discerning God's Will Sample

Foundational Level One of the Decision-Making Pyramid: God’s Intended GOALS for my Life form the base of the pyramid and serve as fundamental guidelines for my decision-making. 

GOAL #1

God's desire for me is to love Him (demonstrated by my willingness to trust in His character and to surrender and obey Him), and to grow in my understanding of how to please Him, and to allow the Holy Spirit to transform me into the image of His Son. 

As I willingly choose to trust God’s character, I can expect to make right decisions. 

As an unbeliever I was comfortable trusting myself. But now as a Christian, I should form the habit of trusting God in my daily decisions. As I come to understand that God loves me, is faithful, sovereign, perfect, can do no wrong, cannot lie, is totally trustworthy, is just and never changes, I will be able to see how reasonable and logical it is to trust Him completely, surrender to Him, obey Him, and how it is very illogical not to trust Him.

A major reason for distrusting God is my tendency to impute to God my character. If God is like me (or like others who have hurt me), then it would be quite reasonable to distrust Him!

GOAL #2

God loves me and every other person in the world, and He wants to use me in His plan to reach unbelievers with the good news of salvation and to bring believers to maturity in Christ. 

As God reinforces how much He loves me (which means He can only do what is in my best interest, as defined by Scripture), I must also know that He won’t necessarily give me what I WANT. Have you ever prayed “God, help me win the lottery, because that will solve all my financial problems?!” He knows that may not be the best for me in the long-run, because of my lack of experience in handling large sums of money, for instance, and it may cause me not to depend on the Lord. 

Consider a 3-year-old who asks his mother for candy 10 minutes before dinner. The mom says “no” because she knows the child may not eat his vegetables, which are needed for him to grow up strong and healthy. The child, however, thinks the mother is mean and doesn’t love him, because she won’t give him what he wants. But the parent knows things and has wisdom beyond the child’s experience. God is like that with me. He knows ultimately what is best for me, even if at this moment it may not seem like it. 

As I trust more and more in His character, listen and obey, my transformed thinking will start aligning with His, and He will use me to attract others to a believing faith in Jesus Christ. This will be through spoken words as well as the example of my life yielded to Him. St. Francis of Assisi said – “Preach the gospel – and if necessary use words.” 

Everyone in the world “is on God’s grid” and He is wooing them to Himself – and often wants to use me in that process, but He can only use me as I am abiding with Him. 

GOAL #3

God wants me to be willing to let Him use me in His plan, resulting in my being blessed both here on earth as well as eternally in heaven. As a disciple of Jesus, I should increasingly recognize the Holy Spirit’s promptings in my everyday life, allowing me to fit into God’s plan for my life.

Do I believe that God wants to bless me as He uses me to bring others into relationship with Him? Pray for a sacrificial love for others and the discernment of the Holy Spirit’s nudging in my spirit (heart). 

If I expect to make good decisions that are pleasing to Him, I must believe in these underlying intended goals, because my acceptance of these fundamental truths impact my decision making. 

Am I trusting completely in God’s Character today? 

(If you are struggling with trusting God, there are numerous resources available including on the DTI web site to  read and meditate on verses about who God is and what He is like.) 

PRAYER: Father, while I may not understand what You are doing each day, I do trust in YOU, because I know that you can only do what’s ultimately best for me. I want to hear your voice in my spirit and follow your leading. Help me to be better at that each day.