How to choose when you don’t know what to choose

How to choose when you don’t know what to choose

So many of us ask this question.  While we are unsanctified, we will not hear from God properly.  We think God is telling us something, but it is our mind tricking us.  When we are sanctified, we can hear God more clearly and distinguish between sin and love, God and Satan; because the knowledge, wisdom, and understanding of God help us to understand his ways and hear him clearly.  Therefore, sanctification affords us the option to lay down our passions and desires and choose God (for further reading, study Acts 21, in particular verse 4).  But I can tell you a biblical approach to determine where God is leading you.

I like to use to scriptures when determining where God is leading me.  The first is Ecclesiastes 11:6:

⁶ Sow your seed in the morning,
and at evening let not your hands be idle,
for you do not know which will succeed,
whether this or that,
or whether both will do equally well.

Although we are called to put our desires before the Lord, our thoughts are not the thoughts of God.  Therefore, give yourselves backup plans and since God is sovereign, trust that He put one of the plans in your heart for as long as you are seeking the moral will of God in your life, you can be sure that He is directing your steps.  God will choose one to succeed, but it isn’t for us to know which.

The second scripture I like is Genesis 26:19-22:

¹⁹ Isaac’s servants dug in the valley and discovered a well of fresh water there. ²⁰ But the herdsmen of Gerar quarreled with Isaac’s herdsmen and said, “The water is ours!” So he named the well Esek, because they disputed with him. ²¹ Then they dug another well, but they quarreled over that one also; so he named it Sitnah. ²² He moved on from there and dug another well, and no one quarreled over it. He named it Rehoboth, saying, “Now the LORD has given us room and we will flourish in the land.”

This story of Isaac is illustrating God’s sovereignty over the lives of those that are righteous in His eyes.  Whether Isaac knew that God was leading him from one land to another is unclear and irrelevant because the main point still holds: God leads us where he wants us.  In this story, Isaac was pushed from one land to another because of conflict and draught.  However, Isaac knew where to settle because it was the land where water was found and where there were no other settlers to push him out.  Through this scripture, a well with water does not necessarily indicate an open door.  Just because there is fruit down one road does not mean that it is the fruit that God wants you to eat.  Just because something is permitted or possible does not mean you are to drink of that “well”.  But a point is clear: Isaac never would have settled in a land where his well had found no water.  Therefore, a door needs to be open and fruit needs to be evident.  Next, we should not choose a direction if it will lead to others perceiving you as not being blameless.  Isaac could have settled or waged war (he was rich from his father’s inheritance). But he chose peace over war, calmness over tension, blameless over blamelessness.

Combine the two scriptures together and you will be sure to not confuse your will with that of God’s. So  sow your seed in the morning and find something else that will allow you to reap a harvest in the evening – for you do not know which God will choose to succeed.  If you are not in the season to harvest yet, let the story of Isaac be an example to determine if you are in the right place.

-M