Posted on Monday, April 8, 2024

Figuring Out What’s Next for You

by Josh Reich

Photo by Austin Chan on Unsplash

One of the biggest struggles many people have is figuring out what to do with their lives. Is now the time to get married? Is this the person I should marry? Do we have kids now or have another one? Is now the time to buy a house, retire, start a business, or return to school?

We stress over these decisions because they have life-altering implications.

According to the Harvard Business Review, we make 33,000 decisions a day.

But making the wrong decisions about big and small things is easy. We all fall into various decision-making traps no matter how well we think we are making decisions or figuring out God’s will for our lives. If you listened to my sermon on Sunday, you know that I don’t think God’s will is as mysterious as we make it out to be.

In Galatians 1, Paul gives us a spiritual autobiography that helps us see how to make decisions and figure out God’s will for our lives by looking backward. In it, Paul talks about the importance of personality and wiring, our family of origin and time spent learning and waiting, and the confirmation of others.

4 questions to ask to figure out God’s will for your life.

What matters most. One of the most quoted verses in Galatians is Galatians 1:10, where Paul asks, For am I now trying to persuade people, or God? Or am I striving to please people? If I were still trying to please people, I would not be a servant of Christ.

Who are you trying to please with your decisions: God or your parents, spouse, or someone else?

Paul wants us to ask ourselves, who are we trying to please? Many people end up going to school, taking a job, or making a decision related to parenting to please someone. Paul wants us to ask, whose opinion matters the most to us? Many Christians would say, “Obviously, the answer is God,” but is it really in their lives?

Personality and wiring. God’s plan for our lives closely relates to how we are wired to the talents and gifts God has given us. We often overlook these as we think about God’s will for our lives or what is next for us, or maybe you grew up in a tradition that made God’s will sound like an awful punishment. To know what is next, look at how you are wired.

In Galatians 1, Paul talks about the importance of understanding how we are wired to what God has planned for us. Paul was incredibly zealous and driven. When God saved Paul, he didn’t change that part of Paul’s personality; he redirected that passion.

God doesn’t necessarily change our personality, gifts or talents; he redirects them for His purposes.

The personality you have isn’t an accident. The gifts and talents you have aren’t an accident. But many of us miss what God has for us because we want a different personality or talent or don’t think we are as good as someone else. Yes, God molded Paul just like everyone else as he grew in his faith and maturity, but he didn’t change who God created him to be.

I wonder if we would see God move in our lives more often if we were available to be used by Him instead of caught up in how we compared ourselves to others.

I wonder if we would see God move in our lives more often if we were available to be used by Him instead of caught up in how we compared ourselves to others.

This is why Paul starts with the first question in verse 10: who are we trying to please?

Time spent learning and waiting. An incredibly important part of Paul’s journey was the three years he spent in Arabia. Almost every person God uses greatly in Scripture and throughout history had a waiting period. Moses waited 40 years in the desert, Elijah ran out into the desert, David was in the desert on the run from Saul (even though he had been anointed king), Jesus was in the desert for 40 years, and so on.

We overlook the importance of the desert season of waiting. But if we skip this, we will greatly reduce our effectiveness.

If you are in the time of waiting, don’t fret. Look to see what God is teaching you and how He is preparing you. You may not be ready for what is next, or someone else may not be ready for what is next for you.

Many of us miss what God has next for us because we rush what we’re in right now.

The confirmation of others. Lastly, Paul talks about the importance of others confirming what God has placed in you. In this passage, Paul discusses the importance of Cephas and James, two apostles whose words carried much weight.

When you share what God has placed on your heart with others close to you who know you well. What do they say?

While the opinion of others shouldn’t be a driving factor (remember verse 10), it is an important part of figuring out what God is calling us to do.

4 things that might be holding you back in life & leadership.

To figure out what’s next, here are 4 simple questions to ask:

What matters most to me? What excites me and wakes me up in the morning?
How am I wired?
Am I prepared for what is next, or do I need to learn and discover more?
Do the people who know me best and love me the most confirm what God has placed on my heart?

Posted on Thursday, September 22, 2022

How to Figure Out God’s Will for Your Life

by Josh Reich

Photo by Jamie Templeton on Unsplash

When people talk about figuring out God’s will or hearing the voice of God, we tend to get very mysterious and talk about it in ways that, when we step back, seem odd.

Have you ever noticed that you can often see God’s will for someone else before they can? Others can usually see it for you as well.

What if you are trying to figure out things in your life and hear the voice of God for you? God speaks to us in a variety of ways. He speaks through his word, open and closed doors, friends, family, community, our desires and fears, and nature, to name a few.

As you face your next decision, whether big or small, here are some ways to begin hearing God speak, move in your life, and stop resisting His voice. That last one is a big one.

1. Listen to the Bible and close friends you trust who are spiritually mature. God’s will for your life is not a mystery; in fact, it’s all over the pages of the Bible. He tells us how to be married, be friends, and parents, have integrity, honor leaders and government and bosses, pray, fast, worship, and be a good steward of our treasure, time, and talents.

I believe that if we do these consistently and wholeheartedly, we will rarely wonder what God’s will for our lives is.

Why?

Because when we listen to his word and wise counsel, we will be doing what he called us to do, what he designed us to do.

On top of that, ask trusted friends and mentors who you consider to be spiritually mature.

What do they do? How do they live? What do they say about the questions you ask or your struggles?

Listen to them.

Does what they have to say line up with Scripture?

If so, that’s a clue you are heading in the right direction.

Pay attention to what the Bible says to you.

During this time, you also need to make sure you are taking time to pause, sit and wait and listen. Don’t rush. One of the ways we get into trouble is when we rush ahead and get started too quickly.

2. Live out what the Bible and those friends tell you.

Here comes the part where many of us get off the ride: Live it out.

It is one thing to say you are going to get up and read your Bible or exercise, and another thing to do it.

It’s one thing to say you are going to be more patient with your kids and another thing to show them patience and grace.

Life is filled with regrets, missed opportunities, and a laundry list of shoulds and coulds.

Pay attention to wise counsel.

3. When you feel like God is speaking…act.

This leads to the last part.

Act.

Do it.

Don’t stand on the sideline.

Have you ever noticed that God is moving in the lives of people who act? I don’t know if he speaks more to them, but they seem to listen more and work more.

Now it is time to move on to what God has said and not look back.

3 ways to hear the voice of God.

Posted on Tuesday, January 18, 2022

The Story of our Lives

by Josh Reich

One of the things I appreciated about Andy Stanley’s book Better Decisions, Fewer Regrets: 5 Questions to Help You Determine Your Next Move is the second question, “What story do I want to tell?”

As he points out, all of our decisions do not simply stay decisions. Instead, they one day become stories.

The decision for which high school you went to (maybe not even your decision) became a series of stories in the future.

This idea framed for Katie and me our decision to move from Arizona to Massachusetts. I’ll get to more detail on that in a couple of weeks.

But the story question is the legacy question. It is the moment where we pause to ask, “When this simply becomes a story, what story do I want to tell?”

If you’re a follower of Jesus, you often ask the question about God’s will for your life. And while I don’t think it is as mysterious as we make it out to be, there are some things we can do to help us make decisions each day that lead to a story we want to tell and honor God.

But how do we make sure that our lives are so close to Jesus that when we make decisions, they align with what God has called and created us to be and to do?

Here are some simple ways to begin seeing God speak and move in your life and stop resisting His voice:

6 questions to help you figure out God’s will for your life.

Here are some questions I came across a few years ago that will help you tell a better story with your life and see what God’s will for your life might be:

What are your passions and gifts? At the intersection of these two elements, you’ll find your purpose in life.
What would you work on or want to do for free? That is usually a good sign of what God has designed you to do.
What energized you when you were a child? Does it still animate you? Knowing your calling is often directly connected to childhood passions and gifts.
If you could do anything and take a pay cut, what would that be? Unfortunately, you may have to blow up your financial goals to pursue your true calling.
What barriers are preventing you from pursuing your true calling? Can you begin removing those?
If you aren’t engaging your gifts and talents where you find yourself now, could you change your current role to engage those better? Don’t rule out the possibility that you are where you need to be.

I’m praying for you this week as you decide to tell a better story.

How to find what you must do with your life.

Posted on Monday, August 27, 2018

God’s Will is Right in Front of You

by Joshua Reich

Many times in Christian circles, we make God’s will into this mysterious thing that we are out looking for, hoping against hope that we’ll find it.

Yet, I don’t think it is a game God is playing with us. His will for our lives and our world is not a game of hide and seek.

It is right in front of us.

God’s Will is Right in Front of You

Over and over in Scripture, we are told what God calls us to.

It starts in Matthew 28, known as the great commission where he tells his disciples: Go, therefore, and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, teaching them to observe everything I have commanded you.

What has he commanded us?

A simple way to figure out God’s will for your life.

A few examples are to make Jesus first in our lives, loving our neighbor, if you are married we are given clear instructions in 1 Peter 3 and Ephesians 5. Same goes for parenting.

You see the commands of Jesus in the sermon on the mount where he lays out his vision of the kingdom in Matthew 5 – 7.

But, and here’s where we get off track, I want a specific plan for my life.

Oftentimes, when I’ve had someone tell me that, I’ll ask them if they’ve tried all the things I listed above.

The answer is almost always no.

I’ve done the same thing.

But what if, what if that is how we stumble into God’s will for our lives?

Posted on Monday, June 11, 2018

3 Ways to Figure Out God’s Will

by Joshua Reich

Have you ever been in a situation and you knew the right thing to do, but that was the last thing you wanted to do? It may have been a huge decision, a situation that could alter your life forever (cheating, adultery, stealing).

It might be a simple situation like a relationship. Someone asked for help and you knew you should give it, but you didn’t. A child asked to stay up just a little longer, a spouse asks for your attention, but you gave an excuse, pulled out your phone and were selfish.

Many times, we know exactly what we should do, what we should say in a situation, what God wants us to do with our lives or a situation, but we don’t.

Why?

Honestly, it usually comes down to comfort and ease.

The right thing usually hurts in some way, will make us stand out or will make our life more difficult.

It’s easy to lie or tell a half-truth. It’s easier to look at porn than pursue your spouse or purity. It’s easier to push your kids to the side for your career (after all you’re doing all that you do for them).

Ironically, in the midst of ignoring these situations or people, we ignore God.

Think about it. If you’re married and you ignore what God has to say about purity, you ignore your spouse but you close yourself off to God and what He is doing in your world as well.

If you are dishonest at work, you not only close yourself off to opportunities at work: promotions, projects, leadership; but you also close yourself off to God and the work He wants to do at your job through you.

Then, and here’s the important part.

When we close ourselves off from God in these situations, we find ourselves wondering why God isn’t speaking to us. Why His will for our lives isn’t as clear as we’d like.

Have you noticed that when unconfessed sin in your life rises, God’s voice tends to quiet?

Many times, we are resisting God in ways we don’t see or expect. It’s not that we are actively trying to, it’s that we aren’t actively trying not to.

Here are some simple ways to begin seeing God speak and move in your life and stop resisting His voice:

3 ways to figure out God’s will for your life.

1. Listen to the Bible and close friends you trust (who are spiritually mature). God’s will for your life is not a mystery, in fact, it’s all over the pages of the Bible. He tells us how to be married, how to be friends, a parent, have integrity, honor leaders and government and bosses, how to pray, how to fast, worship and be a good steward of our treasure, time and talents.

I believe, if we do these consistently and wholeheartedly, we will very rarely wonder what God’s will for our lives are.

Why?

Because we will be doing what He called us to do, what He designed us to do.

On top of that, ask trusted friends and mentors who you consider to be spiritually mature.

What do they do? How do they live? What do they say about the questions you ask or the struggles you have?

Listen to them.

Does what they have to say line up with Scripture?

If so, that’s a clue you are heading in the right direction.

2. Live out what the Bible and those friends tell you.

Here comes the part that many of us get off the ride.

Living it out.

It is one thing to say you are going to get up and read your bible or exercise, and another thing to do it.

It’s one thing to say you are going to be more patient with your kids and another thing to actually show them patience and grace.

Life is filled with regrets, missed opportunities and a laundry lists of should’s and could’s.

3. When you feel like God is speaking…act.

Which leads to the last part.

Act.

Do it.

Don’t’ stand on the sideline.

Have you ever noticed that God is on the move in the lives of people who act? I don’t know if He speaks more to them, but they seem to listen more and act more.

At this point, it is time to move on what God has said and not look back. .

Posted on Thursday, January 21, 2016

How to Figure out God’s Will

by Joshua Reich

Every time you say yes to something, you say no to something else.

This truth has had an enormous impact on how I live my life, how I make decisions, how we do our calendar as a family and how I lead Revolution Church.

But how do you know what to say yes and no to? That’s the most common question I get from someone who has read my book or has heard me say this in a talk. Honestly, it’s different for each person.

Too often we focus on what we want to do in the next day, week or month and then make a decision based on that. Let me frame it a different way for you: What kind of person do you want to become in the next month? In the next half year? One year from now, who do you want to be?

Will this involve doing something? Yes, but it changes the context.

For example, if a year from now you want to be closer to Jesus than you are today, a stronger disciple, then you will make the choice to say yes to community, yes to serving in your church, yes to reading your Bible, and yes to inviting people to church. That will then determine what you say no to.

Often we hope that something will happen. We will simply become kinder, more generous, thinner or smarter without putting in the work or even be willing to make a choice towards something. If you want to become a person who is known for ________, then you will have to make decisions for that to happen. A wish and a hope are not enough.

How to figure out God’s will for your life.

Take your marriage or another relationship. What if six months from now that relationship was stronger? It would mean that what you are doing right now would have to change. You would need to make more of an effort, you would have to say yes to giving time and energy to that relationship and saying no to something else (ie. golfing, sleeping in, working too late).

We often think we have no power over where our life goes, what our marriage becomes, the relationship we have with God or how kind we are. Yet we do. Every day we make decisions that get our life somewhere.

Here’s the problem: we never sit down to ask, Where do I want to end up?

How to figure out God’s calling in your life.

Posted on Wednesday, January 15, 2014

How to Figure out God’s Will

by jmreich

In his book The Catalyst Leader, Brad Lomenick lists some great questions to ask as you discern God’s will and God’s call on your life:

What are your passions and gifts? At the intersection of these two elements, you’ll find your purpose in life.
What would you work on or want to do for free? That is usually a good sign of what God has designed you to do.
What energized you when you were a child? Does it still animate you? Knowing your calling is often directly connected to childhood passions and gifts.
If you could do anything and take a pay cut, what would that be? You may have to blow up your financial goals in order to pursue your true calling.
What barriers are preventing you from pursuing your true calling? Can you begin removing those?
If you aren’t engaging your gifts and talents where you find yourself now, could you make changes in your current role to better engage those? Don’t rule out the possibility that where you are is where you need to be.

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