Guidance & God’s Will

J.I. Packer and Carolyn Nystom from Guard Us, Guide Us: Divine Leading in Life's Decisions

The regular share of guidance is that God teaches us to apply revealed principles of action, both positive and negative; to observe parameters and limits of behavior that the Bible lays down; and thus to follow the path of faithful obedience and true wisdom, in fellowship with the Lord our shepherd who by his Spirit leads us so to do.

Discernment comes through listening to Scripture and to those means of grace that relay biblical teaching to us in digestible form – sermons, instruction talks, hymns, books, Christian conversations, and so forth. Discernment comes as we judge alternative, calculating the probably consequences of each, and testing each to find the best option (which, in cases where no happy options exist, will be the least evil, the course that makes the best of a bad job). Discernment comes as we wait on God, laying before him all the aspects of, and angles on, perplexing situations as we see them and asking for help to discern the proper path. Discernment comes too as God alerts us to the pitfalls of prejudice and impressions – pressures, that is, from untested, sacred-cow assumptions and insistent irrational desires, both of which belong to the confusion of mind about spiritual things that is inseparable from our fallen existence and that is guaranteed to induce temptations along these lines for every single one of us sooner or later.

Bruce Waltke from Finding the Will of God

God Guides us first through his Word, then through our heartfelt desires, then the wise counsel of others, and then our circumstances. At that point we must rely on our own sound judgment...God gave each of us a brain, and he expects us to put it to good use.