Wyndham Hobsons Bay
Lutheran Church

Thoughts from the Pastor:

October 2025

Spiritual Discernment – What Is God’s Will For My Life?

Does God have a plan for my life, already mapped out? 

How can we know what God’s will is for our lives? 

I pray for this, but get no answers?

One thing I’ve learned from thirty-two years as a pastor is that many, if not most, Christians struggle with such questions, and they can be the source of a great deal of anxiety. One of the problems with thinking this way is that it assumes that God’s will is somehow “out there waiting to be found”, like the one person they’re convinced God has for them to marry, or the job that God wants them to do, or… [fill in the blank].

Now, while I don’t think there is any definitive Bible verse that answers this question categorically one way or the other, I do think that God gives us five general principles that you may apply in discerning God’s will, which I have ‘stolen’ from theologian and writer, Dr. Peter Kreeft:

1. Always begin with what you know for sure. Always judge what you don’t know by what you know, what is uncertain by what you are sure of (not the other way around).

2. Let your heart educate your mind. Jesus teaches this principle in John 7:17 when he says to the Pharisees: “If your will were to do the will of my Father, you would understand my teaching.” In other words, we learn to discern God’s will by seeking to love him according to his will.

3. Have a soft heart but a hard head. Or, as Jesus says: be “wise as serpents and harmless as doves” (Matt.10:16). Both are necessary. Soft-heartedness (i.e. compassion) does not excuse soft headedness (i.e. poor or wrong thinking), and hard-headedness (i.e. sticking to the truth no matter what) does not excuse hard-heartedness (i.e. lack of love).

4. Look for the fruits of the spirit, especially the first three: love, joy, and peace. Discerning God’s will shouldn’t be a stiff, brittle, anxious thing but, since it too is part of God’s will for our lives, it should be loving and joyful and peace filled.

5. All God’s signs should line up. There are at least seven signs that God has given us to look for in making right choices: 

1. Scripture (the rule and norm for all faith and life)

2. Official Church Teaching (as embodied in the Lutheran Confessions and in the Doctrinal Statements of the Church)

3. Human Reason (which God created, and he wants us to use rightly)

4. The Appropriate Situation Or Circumstance (e.g. while it is appropriate to stand naked in the bathroom before getting I the shower, it is probably not a good choice to do so in the church)

5. Conscience (which is our innate sense of right and wrong)

6. Our Individual Personal Desires Or Instincts

Prayer. Test your choice by holding it up before God’s face in prayer, as you consider all of these signs. If one of these seven voices says no, don’t do it. If none say no, then go for it. 

Blessings, Pastor Mark