10 Steps to help you know God’s will for your life
Do you struggle to know God’s will for your life?
The good news is that God already knows his plan for you, and he wants you to find it.
“’For I know the plans I have for you,’ declares the Lord, plans to prosper you and not to harm you, plans to give you a hope and a future” Jeremiah 29:11
Jeremiah 29:11
Here are 10 steps to help you know God’s will for your life.
1. Follow him
God’s most important will for you (and for everyone) is to truly know and follow Jesus, and to have a personal relationship with him. Yet, he won’t force this on you, it’s up to you to take up the offer.
Jesus said ‘Ask and it will be given to you, seek and you will find; knock and the door will be opened to you. For everyone who seeks receives, the one who seeks finds, and to the one who knocks, the door will be opened.’ (Matthew 7:7-8)
2. Through His word
Understand who Jesus is and how he wants you to live your life, through his word. Through reading and hearing his word in the bible regularly, God reveals himself to you in the big and small ways. The late Reverend Billy Graham said this, ‘If we are ignorant of God’s word, we will always be ignorant of God’s will.’
Be Intentional
Ask yourself if you are intentional with reading the bible. Make space and time in your life to read, study and reflect. Think about when you can do it, and where you can do it. I love walking, so I do it through walking with headphones, or on the treadmill. I also like to journal so I’ll often read and journal at night. Think intentionally about the best way for you.
Is it in the car on the way to work? First thing in the morning with a cup of coffee? It needs to suit your lifestyle and schedule and that way it can become a habit in your life. Enjoy the process of seeking out ways to read the bible, with a favourite app, a new notebook, a candle or a special corner to sit in. Buy a new bible. Make it an intentional part of your life to spend time with God in his word. If you’re thinking, ‘I just don’t have the time’, think of all the things you do make time for. Challenge yourself to find 10 minutes per day. Start small and become intentional.
I’m reminded of my closest friendships. To stay close to them I need to spend time getting to know them, spend time listening to them, and be intentional about making time for them. By spending time reading, reflecting and applying God’s word, you’ll become closer to God, and you’ll start to recognise his voice and will for your life. The bible says ‘Draw near to God and he will draw near to you’.
3. Surrender
Oprah Winfrey once said;
“As far back as I can recall, my prayer has been the same; ‘Use me God. Show me how to take who I am, who I want to be and what I can do, and use it for a purpose greater than myself.”
Her prayer wasn’t, ‘make me famous and make me rich’-although both of these came along the way.
She prayed for God to use her for a purpose greater than herself. She surrendered herself to be used by God for his purpose. Surrender doesn’t mean surrendering your talent and gifts. Surrendering to God is about putting God and his purpose first in your life, allowing him to use you and your gifts in the way he has chosen.
4. Understand the season you are in
God promises that nothing in our lives is wasted. Every experience, good, bad, or challenging is used. The bible says;
‘And we know that in all things God works for the good of those who love him, who have been called according to his purpose.’ (Romans 8:28)
We all have different seasons in our life. Seasons that reflect the very real weather seasons we know and live through each year.
Autumn– A season of preparation- Like the leaves falling from the trees in readiness for winter – God can put us in a season of preparation. This season can last months or years, think of Moses as he lived out his life in exile for 40 years. Moses married and had a family, before God called him, to lead his people out of Egypt. God can be working on our character, our skill set, or he’s waiting for the right time and the right events to align so you are positioned in exactly the right way to fulfil his purpose.
Winter– It’s cold, it’s dark and it feels like winter lasts forever. The season of challenge, difficulty and hardship or pain. We will all experience this season at some point in our lives. The hardest of seasons to go through, but God is still able to use this season to build us up and prepare us. God’s promise is that he ‘will never leave or forsake you.’
Spring– Everything starts to grow again- Your Spring season may look like a new beginning, a fresh start, the start of a new adventure or journey. You’ve made it through the winter and it’s a season to breathe again.
Summer– Sunny days, the flowers are in bloom – A season where you are flourishing and growing, you are in a place where you feel like you are progressing, and you are where you want to be.
What season do you think you are in now? Knowing your season helps to give you patience, and it helps to prepare you and to grow you.
5. Do you have peace?
Do you have spiritual peace about your idea, decision or dream? Spiritual peace comes from within. You won’t feel anxious, you’ll feel at peace with yourself or the decision you need to make. Gods voice (the holy spirit) lives within you.
The bible says ‘the spirit of God dwells in you’.
And this is what gives you true peace.
As you ask God for direction and guidance on his will for your life, recognise when you feel at peace and when you don’t. Don’t ignore it when your inner voice (the holy spirit) seems to be moving you away from something or when it’s pulling you towards your passions or dreams.
6. Prayer
Prayer, put simply is our conversation with God. Sometimes God doesn’t say anything and he listens.
Sometimes he speaks directly to you through his word. We don’t have to wait until last thing at night to speak to God. God wants us to communicate with him all the time and see him in the every day and in the seemingly ordinary and mundane. He knows you (he created you) so God will find the way that will fit with you. It might be through music, nature, art, and in your time reading his word. In prayer, a thought or an idea, may come. Often thoughts and ideas that wouldn’t reveal themselves if you weren’t in communication through prayer with God.
7. Knowing your gifts and talents
You were born with a unique set of gifts and talents that God has wired specifically for you.
God wants you to discover and use these gifts.
Often your gifts will directly align with God’s will for your life.
At age 11 I decided I wanted to be a professional actress. I had a natural talent (God’s gift) and through a series of events (long story) and one particular and memorable direct prayer to God, I followed my dream. At the age of 21 (and ten years of preparation) I embarked on that career path and worked as a jobbing actress for over 10 years, working in theatre, radio and television. Now at the tender age of 11, I definitely wasn’t thinking about God’s purpose in my life. I just knew I was good at it and wanted to do it. However, with the benefit of hindsight and time, I can see how God worked (and is still working) in my life to align my gifts with his purpose. Although I am no longer in that ‘job’ God has continued to use my creative gifts for his purpose in my personal, business and church life.
What talents and gifts do you have?
What passions have you left unexplored? What dream do you have that won’t go away?
8. Seeing God not coincidence
Be curious and see and recognise God moving your life, don’t put it down to luck or coincidence. When we have prayed and given our hearts desires to God, when we take tentative steps towards a goal, God moves. He moves in small ways, a door opens, an opportunity will present itself.
He moves in big ways too, often after we have proven ourselves through seasons of resilience and perseverance.
9. Being obedient to God’s voice
Psalm 85 verse 8 says;
‘Let me hear what God the Lord will speak, for he will speak peace to his people, to his saints.’
Can you hear his voice? The holy spirit is what God has given us to feel his spirit and feel his presence and voice. When we spend time in prayer, in his word and in worship it becomes easier to recognise his voice. In those moments we can hear a word, a prompting. We can hear his voice through a sermon, a picture, a dream, a song, or through his words speaking to us in the bible.
We can choose to ignore him, or we can choose to be obedient to what God is prompting us or asking us to do or see. When we say yes, take action and follow through…That’s where life gets interesting, and we can truly see God working in our lives.
God will never ask us to do something that goes against his word and he will never ask us to do something that is selfish or harmful. If you struggle to hear God’s voice, pray and ask God to open your eyes and ears. Over time you will start to recognise his voice and your confidence will grow in responding.
10. Trusting God with your life
In those moments of self doubt in the direction of our life and its purpose it’s time to ask the question, ‘Do I trust God with my life? Jesus is the director, he knows the script and he’s the one who knows the ending. CS Lewis said ‘If we find ourselves with a desire that nothing in this world can satisfy, the most probable explanation is that we were made for another world’.
What we do in this life then is a preparation for an eternal life with Jesus.
If we believe as followers of Jesus that we are spending eternity with Jesus, then the answer is yes, we can trust God with our life.
