Our pastor gave the following outline a few years ago and I wrote it down in my Bible. I've gone back to that page in my Bible more times than I can count because decisions don't quit coming just because you got saved, and honestly some of the hardest ones we've faced came after we'd been walking with the Lord a long time, not before.
So I want to share them here, with the verses he gave and a few more that have helped us, and then say something at the end to the folks who read a post like this and end up more scared to decide anything than they were before they read it.
Five questions to ask yourself before you make a decision:
Is it biblical?
"For what saith the scripture?" Roman’s 4:3a
A good decision will not be contrary to scripture from any angle.
Not even one angle.
I've noticed over the years that people will pray and pray and agonize over things the Bible already settled a long time ago.
If the Bible says don't, you don't need to seek God's will on it, you already have His will on it, you just don't like it.
And I say that gently because I've done it.
"Thy word is a lamp unto my feet, and a light unto my path" (Psalm 119:105), but a lamp does you no good if you leave it on the shelf while you go feel your way down the hall in the dark.
If what you're about to do requires you to skip a verse, or explain one away, or stay out of a certain book of the Bible for a while, that's your answer, and nothing in the other four questions is going to overturn it.
Have I prayed about it?
The verse for this one is 2 Samuel 5:23, and you have to read the whole chapter to see why.
The Philistines came against David and "David enquired of the LORD, saying, Shall I go up to the Philistines? wilt thou deliver them into mine hand? And the LORD said unto David, Go up" (2 Samuel 5:19).
So he went and God gave him the victory.
Then the Philistines came right back, same valley, and you'd think he would have just gone, because he'd been right the last time and it was the same enemy.
He didn't.
"And when David enquired of the LORD, he said, Thou shalt not go up; but fetch a compass behind them, and come upon them over against the mulberry trees" (2 Samuel 5:23).
Different answer.
He'd have lost if he'd assumed.
Here's what our pastor said that stuck with me.
Contemplation is not prayer.
Pro and con lists are not prayer.
Worrying is not prayer.
I would add that lying in bed at two in the morning turning it over and over is not prayer either, even though it feels like you're doing something spiritual because it's about a serious thing and you're miserable.
Have you actually gotten down and asked Him?
James says, "If any of you lack wisdom, let him ask of God, that giveth to all men liberally, and upbraideth not; and it shall be given him" (James 1:5).
Upbraideth not.
He isn't going to scold you for bringing Him something small.
Israel got in a mess in Joshua 9 over a decision that looked so obvious nobody bothered to pray, the Gibeonites showed up with moldy bread and old wineskins and a sad story, and "the men took of their victuals, and asked not counsel at the mouth of the LORD" (Joshua 9:14), and they were stuck with that treaty for generations.
Obvious is exactly when you ought to ask.
Have I sought counsel?
"Where no counsel is, the people fall: but in the multitude of counsellors there is safety" (Proverbs 11:14).
You should have a few trusted people you can take decisions to.
A few.
Not too many.
Don't go around asking every Tom, Dick and Harry until somebody finally agrees with you, because that isn't seeking counsel, that's seeking permission, and you'll get it eventually if you ask enough people.
Rehoboam did exactly that.
He "forsook the counsel of the old men, which they had given him, and consulted with the young men that were grown up with him" (1 Kings 12:8), and he lost ten tribes over it.
Take it to two, maybe three folks who sharpen you in the Lord, people who love you enough to tell you no, and then here's the hard part, if all of them say the same thing and it's the opposite of what you wanted to hear, that's the counsel working.
That's what it's for.
Is it practical?
Our pastor used Deuteronomy 32:28-29 here.
"For they are a nation void of counsel, neither is there any understanding in them. O that they were wise, that they understood this, that they would consider their latter end!"
Consider your latter end.
Where does this land you down the road?
What does it cost the people who depend on you?
Sometimes Christians over spiritualize everything, and then they become paralyzed in fear, or they get hasty and jump, and both of those are the same coin turned over.
Neither one is good.
Don't over spiritualize everything.
Some things are just practical, common sense decisions, and God gave you a rational brain for a reason.
Jesus Himself said, "For which of you, intending to build a tower, sitteth not down first, and counteth the cost, whether he have sufficient to finish it?" (Luke 14:28).
That's a man with a pencil doing arithmetic before he digs, and the Lord used it as a picture of following Him.
Solomon said "he that hasteth with his feet sinneth" (Proverbs 19:2).
If the answer is sitting right there in front of you and it's plain sense and it doesn't violate anything in the first three questions, you probably don't need a sign in the sky.
Is there peace?
Job 22:21. "Acquaint now thyself with him, and be at peace: thereby good shall come unto thee."
Our pastor said this one can be tricky, and he was right, because we shouldn't lean on our feelings, we know that, the heart is deceitful and it'll manufacture peace about anything it wants badly enough.
But if you've walked with the Lord long enough you know, deep inside, that when God gives you peace about something it is a very different thing from working up peace in your emotions.
They aren't the same.
I can't fully explain the difference on paper but I know it when I feel it and I think you do too.
"Thou wilt keep him in perfect peace, whose mind is stayed on thee: because he trusteth in thee" (Isaiah 26:3).
Paul said "let the peace of God rule in your hearts" (Colossians 3:15), and the word rule there means to umpire, to make the call.
To be honest, the times we've made the hardest decisions and felt the peace of God most surely, the storm was billowing all around us and the boat was on rough water and nothing on the outside looked like peace.
Yet God put our deepest selves at rest, right there in the middle of the turmoil.
That's the peace Paul meant when he wrote that it "passeth all understanding" (Philippians 4:7), because there was nothing in the circumstances that could explain it.
The disciples had a night like that.
"And there arose a great storm of wind, and the waves beat into the ship, so that it was now full. And he was in the hinder part of the ship, asleep on a pillow" (Mark 4:37-38).
He was asleep.
The boat was filling up with water and the Lord was asleep in the back of it, because He knew whose sea it was.
If you're waiting for the water to get calm before you'll believe you have His peace, you may wait a long time.
Sometimes the peace is the only calm thing in the whole picture.
Five questions.
Is it biblical, have I prayed, have I sought counsel, is it practical, is there peace?
Run a decision through those in that order and most of them sort themselves out before you get to the end.
Now the other thing I wanted to say.
I know a lot of Christians, and I've been one of them in certain seasons, who get so afraid of making the wrong decision that they don't make any decision at all.
They call it waiting on the Lord.
And some waiting is waiting on the Lord, I'm not saying it isn't.
But some of it is just fear wearing a nicer name, and it goes on for months and then years, and the person becomes useless to the Lord, and it wasn't a wrong choice that did it, it was never choosing at all.
Solomon saw this.
"He that observeth the wind shall not sow; and he that regardeth the clouds shall not reap" (Ecclesiastes 11:4).
The farmer who won't plant until the weather is perfect never plants.
Two verses down he says, "In the morning sow thy seed, and in the evening withhold not thine hand: for thou knowest not whether shall prosper, either this or that, or whether they both shall be alike good" (Ecclesiastes 11:6).
You don't know which will prosper.
You're told to sow anyway.
The man in the parable with the one talent buried it, and when his lord asked why, he said, "I was afraid, and went and hid thy talent in the earth" (Matthew 25:25).
His lord did not take fear for an answer.
James puts it plainly, "Therefore to him that knoweth to do good, and doeth it not, to him it is sin" (James 4:17).
Not deciding is deciding.
Those years at the fork in the road were years He gave you.
Here's the comfort in it.
"A man's heart deviseth his way: but the LORD directeth his steps" (Proverbs 16:9).
You do the devising, the praying, the asking, the counting of the cost.
He does the directing.
And if you run it through all five and step out and it turns out you got it wrong, He isn't done with you.
He has turned more of our steps than we'll ever know about this side of heaven, and He's a whole lot better at redirecting somebody who's moving than at getting somebody unstuck who's been sitting in the same spot for three years afraid to move.
Biblical Womanhood
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