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by Eric Hansen

“What is God’s will for me?”
“How do I know God’s will for me?”
“How do I know what God wants me to do?”

These are very common questions that many Christians ask, whether they are new or seasoned believers. These questions also plagued me for years, and I only recently just discovered the answer to them. Through this blog post, I want to share my journey of how I discovered the answers to these questions and how you can discover them for yourself as well.

First, we should examine what God’s will is for Christians as a collective whole, meaning what each one of us is responsible for carrying out regardless of what spiritual gifts we are blessed with.

1 Peter 2:13-15 instructs us to submit ourselves, for the Lord’s sake, to every human authority so that by doing good we should silence the ignorant talk of foolish people. Now, this doesn’t mean we should blindly go along with whatever the politicians say we should follow (especially if it goes against the characteristics or attributes of God, such as supporting homosexuality or abortion). But, the idea is we should not simply rebel because we disagree with what is said or done, because through these times we can glorify God. Instead of being wrapped up in anger, judgment, or envy (for example when certain people gain favor more than others by political decisions), we should stay faithful in our dependence on our Father to demonstrate we don’t need worldly possessions to be joyous (see verses 11-12 of the same chapter).

At its core, this basically equates to the general will of God being that we are to glorify Him in and through all things – the good and the bad, the ups and the downs, the happiness and the sorrows. In apologetics, there’s the concept of the “common moral law,” meaning whether you’re a believer or not, you understand things such as murder is wrong, stealing is bad, etc. The same principle applies here in that regardless of our gifts, we all as Christians know we should glorify God in our circumstances and situations.

So now that there’s an understanding of responsibility shared between all Christians, how does the individual discover God’s will specific to them?

Through the Holy Spirit, we are given various gifts to glorify God in specific ways. While this won’t be an in-depth examination of each gift, the categorical listings are Administration, Apostleship, Helping, and Teaching (1 Corinthians 12:28); Discernment, Faith, Knowledge, Leadership, and Wisdom (1 Corinthians 12:8-10); Exhortation/Encouragement, Giving, Mercy, and Service (Romans 12:8-10); and Pastoring and Evangelism (Ephesians 4:11). Some of these gifts are mentioned in shared verses and elsewhere in the Bible, but this is a starting point toward a deeper study. There are two ways you can start examining where God may be leading you and wanting you to go, and both will happen eventually.

The first way is to look at what abilities you currently possess and what brings you joy. For me, it is programming and teaching/education. Initially, I pursued pastorship as a youth pastor, yet it didn’t feel like I was doing anything more than pounding a round peg in a triangle hole. I’ll explain a bit more of this in the next way. However, having looked at the abilities God had already blessed me with, I started asking God what ways I can use my programming skills to further God’s kingdom. This has led me to start my own freelancing/consulting business where I develop websites for nonprofits and faith-based organizations like churches, ministries, missionaries, etc.

The second way to examine where God may be leading you is to speak to one or more mature Christian people about discovering your gifts and how they can be used. When I did this, I was given an assessment quiz by each of them (to this day I’ve taken 2 different quizzes). There is no standardized assessment for this, but the questions are generally topical (i.e.: “On a scale of 1-4 how often do you help those in need?”). Each time they have come back with similar results leading more toward teaching and evangelism. So I took this as, “Hey, God’s wanting me to be a pastor!” Since then, I’ve learned there’s more than one way to teach, evangelize, and share the gospel with others.

It is important to get an outside perspective on this though. You may know yourself better than your pastor knows you, but the truth of the matter is we also tend to be our worst critics. There may be ways you can build up your gifts in “unconventional ways” as well. For example, I work in the A/V and live streaming area of my church, which has nothing to do with websites, but I can share my wisdom with others to help them grow in that position as well. I would have never gone after this if I didn’t talk to my pastor and asked how I can serve the church, and I am so far away from the pulpit that I can just focus on God’s Word.

Any Christian serious about fulfilling God’s will may often need to ask these questions and follow both of these steps. During these times, we have to remember it’s okay to ask questions and not know, as long as we seek the answer from wise believers. One of the worst things we can do as Christians is be stagnant in our faith breeding good works.

Also, it’s important to remember that God can change your gifts as He pleases. So one day you may have the gift of amazing teaching but the next you’re standing in the choir or collecting tithes, or even just sitting in the pews instead of standing in the pulpit. It’s wise to understand that God knows where we need to be and to be content with where He has us.

In the end, it really doesn’t matter what we do as long as we are obedient to God and glorify Him. As the body of Christ, we are to help each other function as a collective whole, but in all we do, we should first and foremost do it by showing God’s love to others. As we continue to grow in our faith, we should definitely seek deeper ways to glorify and demonstrate Him, but we often make it more complicated than it really needs to be. He has already revealed to us the ways in which we can do these things, we just need to start taking steps out of our comfort areas and put our dependence on Him.

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