I had a mentor who used to say this line to me all the time:

The easiest decisions in life are the ones that are made for you.

He would usually say this in reference to something that I wished had gone a different way. There are decisions that affect our lives that were made for us. We did not get to decide when we were born, where we were born, or the biological parents we were born to. We don’t have a choice when it comes to the weather, but we do get to decide where to live. And we can’t make any company hire us, but we can choose to leave a company that has hired us.

If the easiest decisions in life are the ones that are made for us, why is it so hard to choose what we’re meant to do with our lives?

In other words, if God has an exact thing He’s created us to do, why does it not seem easy to figure out? There are at least a few reasons why this is the case. For starters, God doesn’t usually share this in an audible voice or in written communication. Can you imagine God sending an email, or a text, or sliding into your direct messages with a “Here’s the exact assignment you’re supposed to give your life to”? However, we do believe God speaks; check out last week’s message.

Another thing that makes it difficult to know what God has for us is that God himself leads in different ways with different people. Think about what Scripture teaches us about this. Some people are told, “go to this specific land.” Others are just told “leave the land you’ve been in.” Some are given clear and detailed visions, like when Joseph, the father of Jesus received this in a dream:

Matthew 2:13 When they had gone, an angel of the Lord appeared to Joseph in a dream. “Get up,” he said, “take the child and his mother and escape to Egypt. Stay there until I tell you, for Herod is going to search for the child to kill him.”

This is so specific. Joseph was told when to leave – now. He was told who to take – Mary and Jesus. He was told where to go – Egypt. And he was told how long to stay there – until you here from me again. And he was even told why – Herod is searching for Jesus so he can kill him.

It was all so clear and specific for Joseph. Wouldn’t you love God to give you that kind of specificity? He can and at times, He will. But He won’t always do that. I believe it’s really important to get a general sense of God’s call for your life. For me, a general call gives me the kinds of boundaries I need for my assignments in life. What I mean is that God has developed things in me that inform my decisions, even if He doesn’t give me all of the specifics.

The Apostle Paul received a strong calling from God about where he would aim his life. Here’s what he wrote about this to the Galatians.

Galatians 1:15-16 But when God, who set me apart from my mother’s womb and called me by his grace, was pleased to reveal his Son in me so that I might preach him among the Gentiles, my immediate response was not to consult any human being.

First thing to notice is this:

You have been set apart from your mother’s womb.

Jeremiah heard something similar:

Jeremiah 1:5 “Before I formed you in the womb I knew you, before you were born I set you apart; I appointed you as a prophet to the nations.”

Paul knew that his calling was to preach Jesus among the Gentiles. He was going to help people see that the gospel of Jesus Christ wasn’t just for the Jews. In so many ways, this was such a clear calling on Paul’s life. And at the same time, he wasn’t always told where to go do this or how long he should stay in each city that he went to. One more thing Paul’s calling can teach us:

God always acts in our lives so that he might act through our lives – for His glory and the good of others.

So Paul has a clear, big-picture calling from God. But will he just sit around waiting to hear the specifics of where to go and what to do each day? No, he moves forward based on an understanding of his general calling. Paul sets out on his first missionary journey, where he travels from town to town. He shares the gospel message, churches are established, and he moves on to the next town or city. Our main text for today is Acts 16:5-10.

Acts 16:5-10 So the churches were strengthened in the faith and grew daily in numbers. Paul and his companions traveled throughout the region of Phrygia and Galatia, having been kept by the Holy Spirit from preaching the word in the province of Asia. When they came to the border of Mysia, they tried to enter Bithynia, but the Spirit of Jesus would not allow them to. So they passed by Mysia and went down to Troas. During the night Paul had a vision of a man of Macedonia standing and begging him, “Come over to Macedonia and help us.” After Paul had seen the vision, we got ready at once to leave for Macedonia, concluding that God had called us to preach the gospel to them.

Was Paul doing something wrong? Why would Jesus and the Holy Spirit keep him from going to specific cities and preaching the gospel there? Let’s be honest about how we tend to respond to closed doors from God in our own lives. Many of us would have been like, “Oh man, I guess I wasn’t following Jesus or I was being disobedient to God or I must have grieved the Holy Spirit.” Paul had done none of those things in the wrong way. It’s just that God wanted to redirect him to a specific place at this moment in history – the vocational assignment got way more specific than it had been for Paul. Here’s a massive principle I want us to take to heart.

God the Father, Jesus, and the Holy Spirit are very involved in directing us to our vocational assignments.

Sometimes the boundaries on this are wide and other times, they have a very specific thing for us to do. And while we always want to be discerning, we don’t have to carry so much pressure to think we’re getting it wrong if we don’t receive every little detail from God.

“We must not automatically assume that, if God does not communicate with us on a particular matter, we are displeasing to him…We must resolutely resist the tendency to blame the absence of a word from God automatically on our own wrongness. And we must equally resist the idea that it means we must be somewhat off the track and living in something less than God’s perfect will. If we are living in sincere devotion to the fulfillment of God’s purposes in us, we can be sure that the God who came to us in Jesus Christ will not mumble and tease and trick us regarding any specific matter he wants done. I cannot emphasize this point too much, since the tendency to think otherwise is obviously so strong and ever present.” -Dallas Willard, Hearing God

Jesus isn’t holding out on us. He isn’t upset with us. Now if you aren’t open to what He says or you prefer your will over His, that will be very problematic. But let’s take the pressure off, when we’re willing to do what He wants, but He hasn’t filled in every last detail. God gave Paul the overarching calling for his life and God trusted Paul to live into that as he saw fit.

Have you become the kind of person God trusts with your calling?

Do you want to? How did Paul get to that place to earn God’s trust? Paul was resolved to do whatever God had for him to do with his life. When Paul was warned about what awaited him if he kept moving forward, he responds with the mission statement for his life.

Acts 20:24 However, I consider my life worth nothing to me; my only aim is to finish the race and complete the task the Lord Jesus has given me – the task of testifying to the good news of God’s grace.

God could trust Paul to work out the details because he knew what Paul’s aim was – make much of Jesus and finish his race of telling people about the good news of God’s grace. Again from Dallas Willard:

“One of the major other reasons is that, in general, it is God’s will that we ourselves should have a great part in determining our path through life. This does not mean that he is not with us. Far from it. God both develops and, for our good, tests our character by leaving us to decide. He calls us to responsible citizenship in his kingdom by saying – in effect or in reality – as often as possible, ‘My will for you in this case is that you decide on your own.’ God is preparing us for a life of initiative, so I know that God will be with me even when he does not tell me what to do. His presence is known in ways different from his specifying what he wants done.” -Dallas Willard, Hearing God

Does the aim of your life give God a compelling reason to trust you enough to choose some of the specifics He hasn’t been clear on? Because if your aim is pleasing Him, he can trust you with some of the specifics and He can trust you to listen when he redirects you towards something more specific. The aim of your life determines so much about this.

“Our vocation is always a response to a Divine call to take our place in the kingdom of God. Our vocation is a call to serve God and our fellow humans in the distinctive way that fits the shape of our being.” -David Benner, The Gift of Being Yourself

So, how again do we know what to do with our lives? Increase your God-awareness and your self-awareness. Trust God and His voice in your life. Develop into the kind of person that God can trust. There are two authors, RT Kendall and Gordon MacDonald, who give some questions to consider when it comes to knowing God’s will. RT Kendall shares an acrostic that spells out PEACE in his powerful book called The Anointing.

PROVIDENCE. Is God opening a door or are you trying to kick it down?

ENEMY. What would your enemy, the devil, want you to do?

AUTHORITY. What does God’s word (Scripture) say?

CONFIDENCE. Does the impression you have received increase or diminish your confidence?

EASE. Are you being true to yourself, as God made you?

Gordon MacDonald gives these questions in his book, The Resilient Life,  when you’re trying to determine the direction of your life:

Where am I headed, and what are the great questions that will challenge me along the way?

What kind of a person am I becoming as a result of this journey?

What does God expect of me as I run the race? What have I been equipped to accomplish?

Response:

-Trust Jesus.

-Become the kind of person Jesus can trust.

-Take the pressure off of having to know every detail.

-Move forward and allow God to redirect if and when He wants to.