“If anyone is willing to do His will, he shall know of the teaching, whether it is of God….” (John 7:17 NASB)

The big question in every decision for the Jesus-follower is always: “What does He want me to do?”

In fact, it may be the only question. Everything else is secondary and in a sense, irrelevant.

Google “decision-making” and you will come away with a garageful of rules, principles, and considerations: list all the options, decide on the outcomes you want, identify your own wishes, inventory your resources and abilities, consider the practicality of each option, the number of people to be affected by each, the timing of your decision, what your trusted advisors counsel, how this will affect your future, what it will cost, what you will wish you had done a year from now, a hundred years from now, a million years. The list is endless.

Years ago, Billy Graham and his team were trying to find a word to describe salvation but one without a lot of theological baggage. They chose “decision.” Their radio program became “The Hour of Decision” and their monthly magazine, “Decision.” The concept figured in all his messages: “I’m going to ask you to make a decision tonight….”

And it incurred the wrath of half the Calvinists in the country.

Not all Calvinists, but some, I’m told, hold that God makes the decisions for us. We come into this world pre-programmed and whatever we decide is what He has previously decided.

That line of thinking is so foreign to the thrust of Scripture, so out-of-line with its obvious teaching. God does these great things and lays options before mankind. We are given the honor of choosing and the responsibility of living with the consequence. We may choose with or without His guidance; that itself is one of our choices.

If we choose well, we may live with His blessing. If we choose wrongly, He stands nearby in case we come to our senses and repent and ask for His help. God is love, not willing that any should die. And we are infinitely the better for it.

Isaiah put it like this: “If you are willing and obedient, you will eat the best from the land; but if you resist and rebel, you will be devoured by the sword” (Isa. 1:19-20 NIV). It’s up to us.

God’s people are forever being asked to make choices. Jesus stood at the door of our hearts and knocked. The Lord of Creation was bringing salvation and the blessings of Heaven, but refused to impose them on us. We had to choose to answer the door and invite Him inside to reign as Lord over our little shotgun-house-of-an-existence. When He entered, at that moment it began to be transformed into a palace.

You then join a church. Which one? You buy a Bible. Which translation? You join a Bible study class. Hear His call into the ministry, perhaps. Want to get married. Go to college or seminary. Accept this church or that one or neither.

Every day of our lives, God’s children are making decisions, hundreds of them. Now, we all make decisions, no matter who we are–what to have for breakfast, what to wear to work, what route to drive, whether to run that caution light, how to greet a co-worker, whether to make a phone call or send an e-mail. It’s called life.

However, in addition to those, the disciples of Jesus Christ are called upon to make an entirely different class of decisions.

The Holy Spirit who indwells believers frequently prompts us to go here, do that, give this, do not do that. “My sheep hear my voice,” Jesus said, “and they follow me” (John 10:27). Hearing from the Lord is not the prerogative of the super-spiritual but standard equipment for every believer.

It’s subtle–Scripture calls it “a still small voice” (I Kings 19:12; the NIV says “a gentle whisper”)–and nothing like the weird voices we’re told victims of schizophrenia hear. In fact, the voice of the Holy Spirit sounds more like your own voice. Which can be a problem, as you might surmise.

The child Leigh Anne asked her grandfather, Dr. James Richardson, “Papa, how do you know it’s God or if it’s just your own voice?” The man of God said, “Sweetheart, that’s one of the hardest questions of this life.”

In most cases, however, my answer is: “You just know.”

The times God has spoken directly to me–not audibly, but stronger than that–His word has been an interruption, something completely unexpected, but so right for the situation that I was shocked.

When Jesus had important decisions to make, He spent a great deal of time in prayer. That was His approach (Mark 1:35; Matthew 14:23; Mark 14:32).

If our Lord needed to pray before crucial decisions, how much more we do.

Jesus stood at the tomb of Lazarus, knowing He was about to raise the man four-days-dead back to life. Before doing so, He prayed, “Father, I thank you that you have heard me” (John 11:41). Get that?

He had done His praying ahead of time. Now that the moment had arrived, our Lord did not need to retire for an extended time of pleadings, soul-searchings, and intercessions. We may assume that during the lengthy walk to Bethany, Jesus had filled the hours with prayer.

Our Lord prayed for God’s will, then did it.

That was His secret plan of decision-making: ask, then act.

“I do always do the things that please the Father,” Jesus told a group of Jewish leaders (John 8:29).

Not much in the way of a secret, is it?

So, what does the Lord want you to do today? Why don’t you go do it?

As Mary said to the servants at Cana’s wedding, “Whatever He says to you, do it” (John 2:5).

When the writer of Hebrews listed the honor roll of achievers in the Lord’s work (chapter 11), he says these people all acted by faith. Whatever else that means–and it is loaded–their over-riding consideration was one thing: “What does the Lord want?”

Oh, that it were that simple, someone protests.

God is realistic. He knows we are made of humble stuff (Psalm 103:14). Therefore, He saw to it that the Holy Scriptures included accounts of men who struggled with performing God’s will. We have the accounts of Moses in Exodus 3, Gideon in Judges 6, and Jeremiah in Jeremiah 1.

From the life of Jacob, we conclude that God prefers we wrestle with Him (“Israel” means “one who struggles with God,” Genesis 32:28 ) than take advantage of others, the original meaning of “Jacob.”

Scriptures are loaded with stories of people who got the decision-making right as well as those who blew it.

–Moses did the tough, courageous thing by confronting Pharaoh; Egypt’s ruler, however, rejected God’s call to “let my people go” (Exodus 5-14) and paid a huge price for the wrong decision.

–David made a sincere effort to obey God (most of the time!) and said, “He leadeth me in the path of righteousness” (Psalm 23:3). His grandson Rehoboam, however, followed the counsel of his drinking buddies and the kingdom suffered as a result (II Kings 12).

–David, this writer of praise-songs and champion of God’s people, gave in to the basest of instincts in taking another man’s wife, then ordering the death of the husband to cover up his own misdeeds (II Samuel 11). He paid personally, his family suffered tragically, the nation suffered permanently, and the Lord was humiliated before the pagan world.

–Eleven of the disciples “left all for Jesus’ sake” (Mark 10:28), but Judas betrayed Jesus for a few dollars (Matthew 26:14-16), a decision he came to regret.

–More than one rich person in Scripture followed Jesus faithfully (see Luke 8:3), but “the rich young ruler” turned away from him, unwilling to make the hard choice (Mark 10:22).

Entire libraries could be filled with books on how to know the will of God. If to make wise decisions means to obey His will, then the question becomes, “What does God want and how can we know?”

Here is my answer–and it won’t take an entire book to say it:

1) Want His will. (This brings us back to the opening verse, John 7:17. Don’t ask Him to show you what He wants unless you are willing to obey.)

2) Seek His will. God does not play hide and seek with His children and make His will hard to find. Ask Him. (Romans 8:32 fits here.)

It makes sense that if God wants His “will (to) be done on earth as it is in Heaven” (the Lord’s prayer; Matthew 6:10), then He’s going to tell us what it is.

3) Pay attention. He’s telling us all the time. How? Primarily using two means: His written Word and His indwelling Spirit.

The Word: “Thy word have I hid in my heart that I might not sin against Thee” (Ps. 119:11). “All Scripture…is profitable for teaching, for rebuking, for correcting, for training in righteousness” (II Timothy 3:16).

The Spirit: “The Counselor, the Holy Spirit, whom the Father will send in my name, will teach you all things and will remind you of everything I have said to you” (John 14:26).

Like dual headlights, the Word and the Spirit work in unison to show the way to the Lord’s children. They function like two rails for a train or two eyes in the human head. We need both.

We must be careful not to divorce these two. When we read and interpret the Word without the reigning Holy Spirit’s guidance and restraints, we go astray.

When we turn away from the written Word and make that inner voice the ruling force of our lives, before long we are hearing only ourselves and calling our desires the will of God.

4) Subject your decisions and choices to appropriate tests.

Each of us has to flesh this point out on our own, because entire books have been written to answer the question, “How are we to know a choice is God’s will?” Answers often involve timing, opportunity, common sense, and the counsel of good and faithful brethren in the Lord.

However, and this is where it gets sticky, sometimes God orders something that seems to be poor timing, the opportunity appears absent, it makes no sense, and good people say we’ve lost our minds.

I have no word on this except this: we always do right when we obey the Lord.

Just make sure it’s the Lord you’re obeying.

I always want to be cautious about throwing around the name of the Lord, as in “The Lord told me to do this” and “God said to me.” If it turns out I was mistakenly following my own voice, I may be taking His name in vain. Let’s be cautious.

Finally, my brethren….

I mentioned James Richardson, my mentor in the ministry. We first met in late 1967 when I went from seminary to a church in Greenville, Mississippi. James was 17 years my senior and was serving the First Baptist Church of Leland, seven miles to the east. Somehow the Lord connected us, we became the best of friends, and I am eternally grateful. He was one of the greats in the Kingdom of God. One key evidence of that is he never knew it.

In the mid-1980s, when I was serving the First Baptist Church of Columbus (oddly, on the same highway as Greenville and Leland, but across the state), I had to make a decision about another church that was inviting me to become its pastor. The search committee said I was God’s man and my wife seemed to think this was right.

“As soon as the Lord tells me,” I told them, “I’ll let you know.”

The problem was, He wasn’t telling me anything. At least, not so I could hear.

That’s when I called James Richardson, who by then was serving the First Baptist Church of Madison, Mississippi.

The counsel he gave that day was so dead-on that I have passed it along to a generation of God’s people ever since. I’m confident it pertains to any choice we’re trying to make, and not just preacher-type decisions. Here is the way I put it to my seminary class this week….

“You’re trying to decide between staying at Church A or relocating to Church B. Lock yourself in your prayer place, turn phones off, etc., and get on your knees. Pray for yourself to the point where all you want is the will of God. Surrender every aspect of yourself, your life, and this decision to Him.

“Then, for five minutes, pray option A. Something like, ‘Lord, I’m going to stay at this church. I’ll call that search committee and cancel this business. I’ll call my wife and tell her. Then I’ll dedicate myself to being the best pastor of this church I know how to be, a far better one than in the past.’

“At the end of five minutes, now switch and pray Option B. ‘Lord, I’m going to accept that church’s call. I’ll phone the chairman and tell him we’re coming. We’ll drive down there and meet those people. I’ll preach in that church and then come back here and resign. We’ll sell the house and move down there….’

“At the end of all this, one of these options is going to seem so right and the other completely wrong. That’s when you know.”

That’s what I did. As I was mid-way through the second option, I had to stop. I knew exactly what was happening. I was forcing myself to even envision resigning and moving away. This was not right; it was not going to happen.

I picked up the phone and called the chairman of that committee and ended the process. I called Margaret at home and informed her. (I think she still feels I made the wrong decision, but like Tammy Wynette, she stood by her man! Personally, I have no doubt that I heard from the Lord on this and did the right thing.)

Have I ever made a mistake in decision-making?

How much time you got?