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).

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.

Principle Four: Pray About It. 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.

Principle Five: Inform Yourself. The Bible is full of both examples and principles that merge God’s will with adequately-informed judgment. Those who hope to pass wise judgments are obligated to gain information from multiple witnesses (Deut 19:15; 2 Cor 13:1).

Principle Six: Seek Godly Counsel. Proverbs also teaches that counsel from multiple sources helps them to make good plans (Prov 15:22). Good counsel results in workable plans (Prov 20:18). Relying upon many counselors results in safety (Prov 24:6). Not seeking counsel is the mark of a fool (Prov 12:15).

Principle Seven: Consider Your Circumstances. Paying attention to circumstances is simply a matter of common sense. Paul was using common sense and paying attention to circumstances when he told the centurion not to sail from Fair Havens until spring (Acts 27:9-10).

Principle Eight: Account For Your Inclinations. David taught that when we delight in the Lord, He gives us the desires of our heart (Psalm 37:4). In other words, God typically leads us to want the things that He wants to give us.

Principle Nine: The Peace of God. I am willing to entertain the possibility that God can produce some sort of non-revelatory intuition in the conscience of the believer.

Principle Ten: Beware the Buyer’s Blues. When things don’t seem to work out well, does that mean that we’ve blown it and landed ourselves outside God’s will? And if we have missed His will, is there any way back, or are we doomed to some permanent spiritual disability?

• First, we are not always in a position to know what is working.
• Second, God’s leading is neither miraculous nor prophetic.
• Third, God is quite capable of using our mistakes.
• Fourth, growth in character relies upon endurance, and endurance requires suffering (Rom 5:3-4).
• Fifth, every choice,
• Sixth, our new choices often bring with them new obligations.
• Seventh, sometimes we make choices that we later discover to be conspicuously bad.
• Eighth, we must learn to be perplexed without despairing (2 Cor 4:8).