I used to have a friend who was a professing Christian and was always talking about the "will of God" and was always using the phrase "God told me this," and "God told me to that". It appeared to me an almost flippant reference to the Almighty and His Will. I further felt that she often used the term so much that it appeared that it was "her will" all along, not God's Will. As a pastor, I feel we are and should be certainly searching for the "Will of God" in our lives, it is not something to be taken lightly or flippantly. It is, I feel, a lifelong quest in our journey through this life.

When I want to do something I feel God is leading me to do, and am looking for His Will in a situation, I first run it through four spiritual tests and only act upon it if it passes all four points.

First of all, I test what I want to do against Scripture. If something I want to do is contrary to Scripture or the principles it sets up, then it has failed the first test and cannot be of God because He will not go against His word.

Secondly, I go to someone for Christian counsel. This is extremely important because who you ask will often determine what kind of answer you get. Go to someone who has fought the fight of life and kept the faith, and if possible, someone who has had many years of the spiritual battles of life. If you go to someone who has given in to every temptation that has come his way, you will often not get the counsel you need to make the right choice.

Thirdly, I check for synchronicity of all the events leading to my decision. This was a word I learned from some missionaries living and working in South Korea from 1984-1986. It is a word they coined to mean the bringing together of people, places and events for God's Kingdom to go forward. In other words, the synchronization of events that Almighty God brings to play for His work to go forward.

Fourthly, does what I want to do give me peace in my soul and spirit? I have had situations that passed all the previous three tests. What I wanted was not against Scripture, I had received Christian counsel and they felt there was nothing wrong with what I wanted to do, and it definitely was a synchronistic event, but I had no peace about it in my soul and spirit.

I have found that if the Spirit of God is in something, it flows like a river, ever moving in the intended direction. If not, it is like a flood that destroys and slows down the progress God had planned.