Knowing God's Will

As a youth minister, sometimes young people sometimes ask me how they can know what God's will is for their lives. Usually, the tone of the question is quite agonized, which is not very surprising--people don't usually ask this question when their lives are quiet and comfortable, and they know just what they ought to be doing. They ask this question when they're having trouble coping with their parents, or when they have just broken up with their girlfriends, or when they are trying to figure out what they should do with their lives, or when they know what they should do but are struggling with being able to do it.

As difficult as the question is for the one asking it, however, it is one of my favorite things to be asked.  When a kid comes to me with this question, he* is usually struggling with some issue, but he is responding to the issue in the right way: by seeking the Lord and trying to do His will. To me, this says good things about his priorities, character, and relationship with God.

I usually try to encourage kids to do the following:

1. Keep praying about it. When you want to do God's will, you are in agreement with Him. He will help you to do it. Sometimes, however He likes to make is wait before he tells us because the waiting forces us to rely on him. 
2. Do what you know while you wait for Him to tell you the rest. The Scriptures tell us 90% of what God wants you to do: to treat other people with kindness, to be honest, to tell other people about Him, etc. You should not neglect the 90% while you wait on Him for the other 10%. 
3. Dig into the Scriptures. They tell you what the 90% is and they make you able to know you are hearing Him when He gives you the other 10%. It is in the Scriptures that He tells us what He is like. By spending time reading the Bible what kinds of things He approves of and what kinds of things he doesn't.
4. Talk and pray with an adult whom you respect. Pick someone whom you know and whose walk with the Lord you respect. If your parents are walking with the Lord, they are ideal. If not, a pastor, youth worker or some other adult  at your church with whom you have a relationship would be a good choice

Come to think of it, this isn't such bad advice for me...

* Or her. I find constructs like "he/she," "his or her," etc. to be tiresome, and my wife would hunt me down and kill me if I were to publish something using the plural third-person pronoun, "they," with a singular verb. I will, therefore, use the standard English generic third-person pronoun, "he," in spite of the pronoun's unpopularity and of the fact that it is identical to the masculine, singular third-person pronoun. I'm sorry if I offend (but perhaps not as sorry as you think I should be if you are one who is offended).