Is That You Lord?

We have been seeking the will of the Lord in our lives. How can we tell the difference between the Lord speaking to us, Satan speaking to us, or our own thoughts? I am so frustrated with this whole process because we are trying to make a major decision about moving overseas. Why can’t we seem to receive a clear answer from the Lord?

Q. We have been seeking the will of the Lord in our lives. How can we tell the difference between the Lord speaking to us, satan speaking to us or our own thoughts? I am so frustrated with this whole process because we are trying to make a major decision about moving overseas. It almost gets to the point that it is like a game. Why can’t we seem to receive a clear answer from the Lord?

A. I think we all have had times like this. We want so much to hear the Lord’s voice telling us which way to go that we think every little hint must be Him and soon we’re so confused we don’t know what to do. There are several solutions.

First we can “lay out a fleece” as Gideon did in Judges 6:36-40. The King and Queen of Spain decided to fund Christopher Columbus in his voyage to the New World this way. The decision hinged on the outcome of an upcoming battle everyone thought Spain would lose. The King said that if they won he’d fund the exploration. They won and he did.

Second, we can wait for independent confirmation. If some one who doesn’t know anything about what you’re thinking of doing, offers an unsolicited opinion about it, you may be hearing the will of the Lord. See if the person is a believer and ask him why he said what he said to be sure. If it just popped into his head, then th eLord put it there. Two independent confirmations is a dead certainty that you’ve heard from the Lord.(Deut. 19:15)

Third, and my favorite, we can go straight to God and say something like, “Lord, I really don’t trust myself to make the decision here. You need to make this so abundantly clear that I can’t possibly make a mistake.” The Lord will respond, the confusion will go away and only one option will be left.

By the way, I’ve learned that sometimes the Lord simply wants us to make the choice. Not so He can see what you’ll do, He already knows that. He wants us to see what we’ll do.