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8 Keys to Knowing God's will for your life














www.nairaland.com/2425796/8-keys-knowing-gods-life

When I was a young man, I seemed to continually wrestle with knowing God’s will for my life. I wanted more than anything to follow His plan. Interestingly, now that I’m “old” (currently 47 years old), I still wrestle with doing His will in my life. I have come to learn that this is not just something that a young person does early in life; it is a lifelong pursuit in order to stay in the exact center of His plan.
So, then, how can we know God’s plan for our lives? Over the past twenty-five years that I have been in ministry, I have discovered eight vital keys to knowing God’s will. Here they are:
1) Walk with God.
For starters, if you are interested in knowing God’s plan for your life, then you must learn to walk with God. You need to develop a relationship with Him. Christianity is all about relationship rather than just religion.
And so you must cultivate your relationship with God. You must seek to know Him and not just seek to know about Him.
You will cultivate that relationship best by spending time in His Word, taking time for prayer, and taking every opportunity you can to be involved in church and small group Bible study opportunities. When you seek these disciplines in your life, God will begin the first steps to revealing His plan to you.
Proverbs 3:5-6
5 Trust in the Lord with all your heart, and lean not on your own understanding; 6 In all your ways acknowledge Him, and He shall direct your paths.
2) Surrender your will to God’s.
Many times when we say we are seeking God’s will, what we are really wanting to say to God is this: “OK, God, here’s what I’m planning to do. Now I need you to rubber stamp this, all right?” I must tell you that this is not really effective in finding His true will.
Before God will begin to reveal His will to you, you must be committed to doing whatever it is that He desires for you to do. God will likely be slow to show you His plan if He knows you will likely not do that plan anyway.
Romans 12:1-2
1 I beseech you therefore, brethren, by the mercies of God, that you present your bodies a living sacrifice, holy, acceptable to God, which is your reasonable service. 2 And do not be conformed to this world, but be transformed by the renewing of your mind, that you may prove what is that good and acceptable and perfect will of God.
Jesus was willing to die for us, so shouldn’t we be willing to live for Him? When we surrender to Him, that is when He really begins to direct our steps.
3) Obey what you already know to be God’s Will.
Many people seem to want to know what God’s plan is for their lives, but they overlook the fact that 98% of His will is already delineated carefully through His Word. God is very clear about many, many aspects of His will. For instance, it is clearly His plan that we abstain from sexual immorality (1 Thessalonians 4:3 ).
If we do not obey the things that God has shown us clearly to be His will, why would we think He would reveal any further information regarding His plan for our lives? Obedience is an important first step.
4) Seek godly input.
One key component to finding God’s will is to seek the input of godly advisors in your life. If you don’t currently have 3-4 godly mentors, then I would highly recommend that you seek them out right away.
Think of it this way: you should understand that you are basically a composite of the five people you spend the most time with. So, then, it is vital that you choose those five people well. If you choose to surround yourself with godly advisors, they will be instrumental in helping you discern God’s plan for your life. But if you surround yourself with people who are far from God, your hope of finding His best for your life will be greatly diminished.
Proverbs 11:14
Where there is no counsel, the people fall; but in the multitude of counselors there is safety.
The church is designed to help you greatly with this. I would encourage you to be in church every single time the doors are opened. The more you involve yourself with a community of believers, the greater your chances will be of finding godly men and women who can help you discern God’s will.
5) Pay attention to how God has wired you.
God has created you to fulfill a specific role in this world. There is no one else who can achieve completely what God has purposely created you to do.
The Apostle Peter gives us this admonition:
1 Peter 4:10
As each one has received a gift, minister it to one another, as good stewards of the manifold grace of God.
God has gifted every one of us to perform a special mission for which we alone were created. How amazing is that? Wow!
So, when you seek to discover God’s will for your life, pay attention to how He has gifted you. His plan for you will always be directly related to the gifts that He has bestowed upon you. The great news is that you will automatically be good at whatever it is that He has called you to do!
6) Listen to God’s Spirit.
I experienced a major turning point in my own prayer life when I learned simply to shut up while I was praying. That may sound odd to you, and it seemed odd to me at first.
You see, I used to do all the talking when I prayed to God. But then, several years ago, I read Bill Hybel’s book, Too Busy Not to Pray . That book completely changed the way I approached God through prayer. Since reading that book, I have added a significant component to my prayer life: listening. I take time to listen to what God might have to say to me.
Practically, the way I go about this is to bring a notepad with me when I sit down to pray. Then I write at the top of several pages things like the following:
“What is the next step in my career?”
“What is the next step in my ministry?”
“What is the next step for my family?”
“What is the next step for my marriage?”
“What is the next step in my education?”
“What is the next step in my finances?”
During my prayer time, I meditate on questions such as the above. Often, God will start flooding my heart with ideas and information regarding one or more of those questions. I write as fast as I can as He speaks to my heart. What a glorious experience that is to sense His Spirit on me, guiding my thoughts and words.
Through experiences like this, He has shown me many times with great clarity what His will is for my life. I long for those experiences when He speaks to me like that. Those times are truly life changing.
John 10:27
My sheep hear My voice, and I know them, and they follow Me.
7) Listen to your heart.
In addition to listening to the Spirit, I also recommend listening to your heart. To understand my point here, consider the following passage:
Psalms 37:4-5
4 Delight yourself also in the LORD, and He shall give you the desires of your heart. 5 Commit your way to the LORD, trust also in Him, and He shall bring it to pass. (NKJV)
I love this passage, because it shows me that, when I am walking with the Lord, He will actually let me do many really cool things that I actually love to do! When you are close to Him, He actually begins to shape your desires so that you desire the things that He has already called you to do.
So then, His plan actually becomes a super-exciting adventure. I always have the most fun in life when I am doing God’s will. And that is because He shapes my “wanter” to want to do the things for which He has actually created me.
8 ) Take a look at your circumstances.
God often clearly demonstrates His plan for our lives by lining up circumstances in obvious ways. And He also shows us what His will is NOT for us to do in that same way. It is not His will for you to take the job that is not offered to you. If you are 5’ 6” tall and weigh 125 lbs., it is not likely that God has created you to play professional football.
Over the years, I have discovered that God is pretty good at opening and closing doors. He even did that for the Apostle Paul and his enterouge in Acts. Take a look at this passage:
Acts 16:6-10
6 Now when they had gone through Phrygia and the region of Galatia, they were forbidden by the Holy Spirit to preach the word in Asia.
7 After they had come to Mysia, they tried to go into Bithynia, but the Spirit did not permit them.
8 So passing by Mysia, they came down to Troas.
9 And a vision appeared to Paul in the night. A man of Macedonia stood and pleaded with him, saying, “Come over to Macedonia and help us.”
10 Now after he had seen the vision, immediately we sought to go to Macedonia, concluding that the Lord had called us to preach the gospel to them.
So, even Paul had to face closed doors in his ministry. God often uses closed doors to show us clearly what He does NOT want us to do. And He also uses open doors at times to show us what He DOES want us to do. Of course, this does not mean that every open door is definitely God’s plan, but it does help to give you some basic direction.
A Closing Thought:
The next time you begin to ponder God’s plan for your life, I would encourage you to mull over the above eight keys. Use these principles to help you to hone in on His plan. And when you seek His will earnestly, you will find it!
-Chris Russell.

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Beautiful pots always start with a chunk of shapeless clay. The first step in making pots is to prepare the clay. It is kneaded back and forth, back and forth, with the heel of the hands of the potter, until it forms a smooth ball. Next it is pulled, stretched, pressed, smoothed, and rolled into the shape of the pot that the potter desires.
I admit that I am a marred piece of clay. My Heavenly Father is the Potter. Just like that clay in the hand of the potter, so am I in the Lord's hands.
If we want to be honest, I think we would admit that we spend a whole lot of time in the kneading hands of the Potter. There seem to be particular seasons in life where the pressure of His shaping hands is felt more than the hand of His blessing. It is so important to God that we become even, pleasing, well-formed, and purposeful, that His infinite love will allow us to be very uncomfortable.
We are kneaded and stretched in many different ways. A difficult work situation. A fight with a spouse. A disobedient child. An aging parent. People talking about us. Feeling offended. Thinking life isn't fair. We may have more month left at the end of the money. But God tells us that He is shaping us as it seems best to Him.
Human clay is not passive, as is the clay of the earthly potter. When we are being kneaded and stretched, we can respond. Therein lies our choice. While God is sovereign in His work, He is responsive to our wills. We can choose to live by our emotions and feelings, giving way to anger, bitterness and resentment. Or, we can choose to respond in love. We can choose to return evil for evil or overcome evil with good. (Romans 12:21) We can choose to renew our mind with the Word of God and obey it, or we can choose to conform to the patterns of the world. (Romans 12:2) We can choose fear or faith.
I believe the more right choices that we make, the less time we will spend on the potter's wheel. The children of Israel turned an eleven day journey into a 40 year trip, around the same mountain over and over and over again with their grumbling, complaining and disobedience.
Are you pliable in the Potter's hands, or are you hard and cracked? Are you concentrating more on the pressure of His hands, or on the loving touch of them? If a piece of clay is pliable, it is much easier and faster for the potter to mold it into shape. If it is hard and cracked the Potter won't stop -- He will just continue to knead and press until it is just as He wants it to be.
The making of a beautiful pot doesn't stop with the kneading process. The pots are then fired. They are put into a kiln or furnace. These are the real pressures of life. The marriage fails. The child rebels. The job is lost. The eviction notice comes in the mail. They ruin your reputation. The doctor's report says it's cancer. This is where total surrender to the Potter is the only rational choice to make. When it comes to God it is perfectly appropriate to say, "I give! Take it all! Take control of it all! There is nothing left of me." Isn't that just the response He wanted from you all along? Self-sufficiency may impress men but it doesn't impress God. Our feeble strength is no match for the strength He can give. The more helpless we are, the more God can show His power.
Show God that you trust in Him completely. Repent of your sins and thinking you can take care of yourself, or that you can solve your own problems. Stop relying on yourself and men - start relying on God. He knows what He's doing. Isaiah 29:16 says, "You turn things upside down, as if the potter were thought to be like the clay! Shall what is formed say to him who formed it, "He did not make me"? Can the pot say of the potter, "He knows nothing"? Of course not - He knows everything! He is our Creator, and is the only one who can control our lives without destroying them.
Fall limp in the hands of the Potter. Be pliable and moldable no matter what comes. God says in Isaiah 30:15, "In repentance and rest is your salvation, in quietness and trust is your strength."
An assessment of a finished pot should reveal an even thickness of the walls, a pleasing form, well-joined pieces, and it should be made for a designated purpose.
I am making a determined decision to be a pliable piece of clay in my Potter's hands beginning today. I have been on the wheel a lot lately, and God's light has shown on many dark places I still have in my heart. He has made me acutely aware of the ugliness of my sins, great and small, in His sight. But He has also let me know that those lessons learned were the exact reasons that I've been on the wheel. I believe that He is evening me out, and smoothing my rough edges. He is giving me a pleasing form in His sight. He is imparting to me His strength to keep my pieces well-joined so they don't come apart under pressure. And He is daily showing me the designated purpose for my life.
Repent - Rest - Be Quiet - Trust
We will always be marred to some degree until Jesus comes and we are made just like Him. But in the meantime, being moldable and pliable in the Potter's loving hands will cause Him to stand back from His finished product and say, "Ah...You are now a vessel of honor fit for my use."
Donna Schultz

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God cares about the little things in our lives, because everything is “little” compared to God!
Luke 12:7 says, “Indeed, the very of your head are all numbered. Don't be afraid; you are worth more than many sparrows.” God takes the time to keep up with how many hairs we have—now that’s a God of detail!
Throughout Scripture, we see that God is interested in more than just the highlights of our lives as His children. He cares about every aspect of who we are, because we are His creation made in His image (see Genesis 1:27 ). He cares for all of His creations, including plants, animals, and the environment. Matthew 6:26 says, “Look at the birds of the air; they do not sow or reap or store away in barns, and yet your heavenly Father feeds them. Are you not much more valuable than they?” If God even meets the needs of birds who are not made in His image, who have no will to choose Him or reject Him, how much more will he care for our needs in detail? Because of God’s care, we can trust Him: “Your Father knows what you need before you ask him” (Matthew 6:8 ).
Throughout Jesus’ earthly ministry, we see that He was interested in the specifics of people’s lives. Jesus has always been more interested in quality than quantity. Jesus was sent to save the lost and bridge the gap between man and God since the fall, but He still took the time to meet the immediate needs of people He encountered. In Matthew 14:18–21 we see a clear picture of Jesus’ compassion on the hungry crowds. One meal in the lives of so many is but a detail, yet we have an amazing account of His earnestness in providing a heaven-sent meal for over 5,000 men, women, and children.
Children are “little things” and often seen to get in the way of the more “important” things. In fact, once when people brought their children to Jesus, the disciples rebuked them with the thought of sending them away. “When Jesus saw this, he was indignant. He said to them, ‘Let the little children come to me, and do not hinder them, for the kingdom of God belongs to such as these’” (Mark 10:14 ). Jesus is not too “big” or too busy to bless the children.
God does indeed care about the “little things” in our lives, because He cares about us. Compared to Him and His glory, our whole lives are made up of those “little things.” Psalm 139:17–18 says, “How precious to me are your thoughts, O God! How vast is the sum of them, Were I to count them, they would outnumber the grains of sand. When I am awake, I am still with you.”

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nairamaverick:
help of my supervisor and a programmer. Don't get me wrong I did the theoretical aspect on my own and got a programmer to write the codes for the software. What do you mean by interest is about time and mind

Your supervisor is good.

By mind I mean, you have to accept the course and be mentally prepared to study it.

Interest is all about mind n time. How did you do your project?

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Thanks a lot. You just saved a soul

Thank God.

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Ask for grace.

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we thank God