HOW DO WE KNOW GOD’S WILL?

Christ the Good Shepherd, Leading His Sheep by His "Still, Small Voice"

By Bp. Joseph (Ancient Church of the West)

INTRODUCTION

This morning, in an interesting and informative chat with our catechumens and recently baptized, I watched a video that one of our brothers shared on finding God's will. Among the frequent questions I am asked as a pastor on the spiritual life, few weigh more heavily on people's hearts than this question - How do we know the will of God? The Scriptures speak with both confidence and sobriety on this point. “In all thy ways acknowledge Him, and He shall direct thy paths” (Prov. 3:6). Yet we also hear the Lord warning us against presumption and false certitude: “Not every one that saith unto me, Lord, Lord, shall enter into the kingdom of heaven; but he that doeth the will of my Father which is in heaven” (Matt. 7:21).

The video that we watched raised this question anew. Fr. Moses McPherson offered a critique of certain Protestant habits, in habits we all recognize, wherein every emotion, preference, or desire is baptized as “what God told me.” His warning is needed: the casual invocation of divine authority to validate personal choices is a spiritual danger. It turns discernment into self-justification, and replaces the Cross with impulse.

Yet in responding to a genuine problem, Fr. Moses may have pressed too far in the opposite direction. His response implied that God does not have a perfect will for our lives, but rather gives us the decision based on principles handed to us in the Church, and that decision-making belongs entirely to human responsibility. In this, he misses the deeper witness of Scripture, the Fathers, and the lived experience of the Church. God does have a voice that we are to hear and obey. The God who numbers the hairs on our head, who calls us by name, who orders all things in providence, and who reveals Himself to the lowly, is not a silent spectator. He is the Shepherd who speaks, and His sheep do hear His voice.

THE NECESSITY OF SOBRIETY IN DISCERNMENT

There is a perfect will of God, but it is not discovered through intuition, emotional excitement, or religious theatrics. In every age, the saints testify that discerning the divine will requires:

• Seriousness: the refusal to treat spiritual decisions lightly.

• Quietness: a spirit undistracted by passions and noise.

• Repentance: the interior acknowledgment of our own blindness.

• Submission: yielding our preferences to the judgement of God.

These are not modern psychological or counseling techniques, but the essential rhythms of the Church’s life. St. John Chrysostom reminds us that “a humble mind is a lamp unto the soul,” and St. Isaac the Syrian writes that illumination comes only to the one who “has made peace with his thoughts.”

From my pastoral perspective, the misuse of the phrase “God told me” is not merely mistaken, but is spiritually dangerous. It confuses personal desires and feelings with divine revelation. But the opposite error, in denying God’s active, personal guidance, is also equally as perilous, since the biblical narrative is full of God's particular direction, as is Church history.

DISCERNMENT AS A PROCESS, NOT A MOMENT

We fall into error when we think spiritual clarity arrives all at once, as though God’s will were a message written in the sky. Often, it is a gradual unveiling, a slow convergence of peace, clarity, counsel, and circumstance. Absolute certainty often comes only after the fact, when the divine fingerprints become visible in hindsight. “Hindsight is 20/20” is also true for God’s will, and the narrative of His will being made clear often overlooks the fact that it may take years to see the full tapestry of God’s intricate design unfold into the world.

Another important point to remember is that, in a fallen world, even obedience to God’s will does not remove our suffering. Christ Himself obeyed the Father perfectly and walked straight into the trial of Gethsemane, asking for the cup of suffering to be removed from Him, but submitting when it was not. Suffering is not a sign of failure, nor is comfort or wealth a sign of divine approval. The Apostle’s words are bracing: “Through much tribulation we must enter into the kingdom of God.” (Acts 14:22)

REPENTANCE AS THE GATE OF ILLUMINATION

To the extent that our hearts repent, grace becomes operative in our lives; and that grace becomes the necessary precondition for recognizing God’s voice. Without repentance, discernment becomes self-flattery. With repentance, it becomes a pathway of light. Purification, which is expressed through fasting, prayer, confession, self-examination, and the refusal to trust one’s own impulses, creates the interior stillness in which God’s guidance can be perceived.

This is not “works-based salvation.” The Fathers are explicit: even our capacity to repent, the very desire to pray, is already the work of grace within us. God imparts His grace in creation, so we can never claim to be "self-made." As St. Macarius wrote, “The soul cannot see itself as it is unless light shines upon it from above.”

THE ROLE OF SPIRITUAL FATHERS AND MOTHERS

Since we receive the Holy Spirit corporately, as members of the Church, no one discerns God’s will alone. The Church has never taught autonomous spirituality. The voice of wise guides, of those who have suffered, prayed, and been purified before us, is also indispensable.

The times in my own life where I have most clearly recognized God’s will have almost always followed:

• Extended periods of fasting,

• Consultation with godly spiritual fathers and mothers, and

• A willingness to hear what I did not want to hear.

The Holy Spirit speaks through the humble, the seasoned, the tested. Discerning the will of God apart from the counsel of the Church is not discernment, but is rather disguised individualism. Recent converts to Orthodoxy are full of this hidden pride, because they decided to follow an ancient and apostolic pathway, up and above their authorities, fathers and mothers in the flesh, and their culture - so the very hyper-individualism that brought them into Ancient Orthodoxy, and disobedience, now must be unlearned. 

PRACTICAL STEPS FOR DISCERNING GOD’S WILL

The Ancient Orthodox spiritual tradition offers a concrete pathway:

1. Begin with repentance. Clear the fog of sin and self before trying to read the road ahead. We cannot see God when our hearts are darkened by sin, so confession and repentance are key to preparing the heart to receive God's word. 

2. Enter into fasting. Fasting does not force God’s hand… it frees your heart. We do not fast because food is evil, or because the material world is innately wrong. Rather, we fast because our priorities are off, and we rarely put God first, even when we say pious platitudes and act holy. When we fast, we put our bodies, wants, needs, desires down, and lift God up, and for a little while, turn our hunger from food to God. 

3. Seek counsel. Not from friends who agree with you, but from spiritual elders who will tell you the truth. Seeking out good spiritual fathers and mothers at this juncture is essential, so that we can have a support system around us that encourages good behavior and incentivizes proper attitudes and perspectives.  

4. Pray the Psalms daily. God forms the inner ear through Scripture.

5. Ask for peace, not signs. Peace is the fruit of the Spirit; signs can be delusions. Many are misled through signs and wonders.

6. Accept limitation. God’s will is given enough for obedience, not enough for control. Anything that ventures to control God is founded in the opposite of truth, the lie of pride that Satan has used generation after generation to darken the hearts of mankind, and is attempting magic rather than covenantal obedience.

7. Surrender outcomes. Faith obeys without demanding that God guarantee comfort or worldly success.

Above all, remember the words of St. Augustine: “Love God, and do what you will.” Not because our will is infallible, but because rightly directed love forms a rightly ordered will.

A COLLECT FOR DISCERNMENT OF GOD’S WILL

O LORD our God, who orderest all things in wisdom and numberest the steps of thy faithful servants in Thy holy will: Grant unto us the spirit of discernment, that in humility, repentance, and steadfast prayer, we may behold thy guiding hand throughout our lives. Purge our hearts from pride and self-deception, quiet our minds from earthly tumult, and fill us with the light of thy Holy Ghost; that, seeking not our own will but thine alone, we may walk in the way of righteousness and peace. Through Jesus Christ our Lord, who liveth and reigneth with thee and the same Spirit, ever one God, world without end. Amen.