Principle One: God’s will always accords with Scripture rightly understood.
Whatever other tools or techniques one uses to discern God’s direction, the Bible always has the final word. God will never lead contrary to His revealed will in the Bible.

Principle Two: believers who want to know God’s will must be prepared to do God’s will.
In other words, submission precedes knowledge (Prov 1:7, 9:10). We do not have the privilege of placing God’s will under scrutiny or of sitting in judgment over it. We are not permitted to find out what God’s direction is so that we can then decide whether we will follow it. If we are not genuinely interested in doing God’s will, then God has no reason to help us discover His will. God leads those who are willing to obey.

How can we obey God’s will before He makes it known? The answer to this question is painfully simple. God has already disclosed His will, or most of it, in a clear and objective manner. Still, we cannot claim that we want God’s leading in our unique circumstances if we are presently disobeying His revealed will in Scripture. That kind of conduct shows that we are merely pretending. If we know that we are disobeying God’s revealed will while we are pretending to agonize over His individual leading, then we are guilty of flat hypocrisy.

3. How would you counsel a person who claimed to be seeking God’s will in one area while fighting it in another?

Principle Three: Consider Your Duties
God does not lead His people to neglect their duties, and duties are manifold. Christians cannot rightly plead God’s will as an excuse to escape from the obligations that they owe. Everyone has duties. Finding God’s direction must begin by acknowledging these duties and seeking to fulfill them. Christians who develop a keen sense of duty and a determination to fulfill all duties often find that many seemingly-difficult choices just vanish. Discovering God’s leading will become a much simpler process.

• What duties do you owe to your parents? Your spouse? Your children? Your extended family? Your church? Your employer? Your country?
• Can you think of other duties that you might have? Have you made promises that you must keep? Have you agreed to other obligations that you must fulfill?
• Do these duties place any decisions out of bounds for you? If so, what are some decisions that you must not even consider?

Principle Four: Pray About It
In other words, we do not have to ask God what His will is in any of those matters. His will is already settled, stated for us in black and white. We determine God’s revealed will, not by praying for divine guidance, but by reading the Bible.

When it comes to things like these we don’t need to pray about God’s will. We just need to do it. If we pray about such activities, we reduce piety to a game and Christianity to a show. In effect, we are mocking God—and God refuses to be mocked (Gal 6:7).

The time to pray for God’s direction is when Scripture by itself does not give us clear guidance. That is when we must come to our Father and humbly ask Him for wisdom that we do not possess in ourselves. It is the time to ask Him to make clear to us the best way forward.

If it is a decision that affects our families, then we should ask our spouses and perhaps other family members to pray with us. We might solicit the prayers of our Christian brothers and sisters. Sometimes we will even commit ourselves to fasting so as to give ourselves more fully to prayer. The prayer of a righteous person has great power (Jas 5:16).