This is a reply to a very long post on No Longer Quivering discussion board made by Arietty. She nails it on the head.

I believe the real problem is the idea that there is a perfect decision you can make about any issue and that making that prefect decision is being in God’s will. Making the wrong decision makes it harder for God to make sure stuff works out right.

In my Christian view God is concerned with people’s hearts not people’s offspring quantity or real estate choices or jobs. Just get on with life and make decisions based on the information available at the time, what seems best to suit you and yours.. God does not have a perfect car, job, house, mission, partner for you. You don’t have to decide which one is God’s will. God is not following you around waiting for you to magically pick the right car to buy.

It’s such a 1st world way of looking at God.. we are RICH in choices, absolutely luxuriously rich. Most of the world does not have the kinds of choices we do and has to make do with what is right in front of them, not buy books all about discerning God’s will so they can revel in the mega-mart of choices we have.

For some people there is a lot of fear that if they make the wrong choices bad stuff will happen because they will not have discerned God’s will. This is not spirituality, this is superstition.

I’ve some trouble with people who claim “God has told them to….”, especially when they believe that this plan includes me. There are people who claim to constantly be hearing from God, and will tell you what to do, authoritatively, no matter what you ask them about (and even if you don’t)

How do you brush it off if someone says God told them that this is the thing to do?
How do you lovingly, politely, yet still firmly tell them that you haven’t had any such revelations yourself, so you assume the plan must not include you?

Like Arietty on NLQ, I tend to think logically. If I want to know what God has to say about something, I’ll turn to the Bible where he will have said it directly or indirectly. Prayer helps too, but it doesn’t always tell me whether I should take house A or B. Things usually just fall together neatly, and you realize as you look back that God must have orchestrated the whole thing.

Believing that there is one perfect plan, one perfect place, one perfect job/ministry, etc… must make for a life of much anxiety. What if you missed a sign? What if you got it wrong?
Paired with the belief that if you are following the perfect path you ought to be enjoying blessings upon blessings and no tribulations, then if anything goes wrong you’ll be breaking your head once again.

I’ve done that. Thankfully for very short periods of time. I don’t want to go back to thinking that way.

I had to laugh hard when I read the paragraph in bold. She has a sense of humor!