I was helping my friend Darrell clean his garage the first time the myth about Christians being clueless when it comes to knowing how to live life was hung on me. I was maybe 14 or 15, and like many church-going kids that age, I was still trying to figure out just how ‘Christian’ I really wanted to be. The fact that I would willingly place any moral or personal limits on my behavior was a mystery that made no sense to Darrell.

As I tried to explain the beliefs and values behind my choices, Darrell eventually couldn’t take it any more. He stopped sweeping, turned and said, "Somebody has handed you a big pile of ‘stuff,’ and you’ve just accepted the whole load."

Darrell felt sorry for me. His system for determining how to live life seemed so much simpler and better: Forget God, forget about restrictions, do what you want, do who you want, say what you want, any way you want, do whatever seems best to you and don’t ever let anyone tell you how to live your life …not God, not any silly church, not even your parents. Darrell had it figured out. He saw me as some clueless kid who was never going to discover how to find and live the good life.

Christians claim there’s an invisible, all knowing God out there somewhere. They believe in, worship and communicate with that God. For many skeptics, that is enough to brand us a bunch of dreamers out of touch with reality. As some people see it, we’ve restricted and adjusted our lives to please a God we can’t even prove exists.

On top of that, many Christians believe the Bible is a book whose words and teachings were written and collected through God’s supernatural involvement. Some of us crazies here at Heartland are constantly claiming that the truths of the Bible have the power to radically change lives by personally connecting people to the God of the universe. People like my friend Darrell would say it takes blind, almost mindless faith for anyone to buy into that.

(To try and get some answers or at least some perspective on that question, first I want us to look at three ways Christians seek God’s guidance that give skeptics reasons to say some of us are more about spiritual hocus-pocus and self-deception than we are connecting with God. Secondly, I want to look at three ways the Bible describes God’s willingness and ability to guide people like us.

Common approaches to seeking God’s guidance:

1. Open doors/closed doors – People use this approach to determine what God wants them to do when they have to choose between two or more things and all of the choices are good. Here’s how this works: Being good, spiritual people, we pray and ask God to open doors in the direction he wants us to go and close doors in the direction that’s not his best choice for us.

Is this approach valid? The Bible tells us clearly that people who seek to be led by God, will be directed by him. One classic example of that concept is found in Proverbs 3:5-6: "Trust in the Lord with all your heart; do not depend on your own understanding. Seek his will in all you do, and he will direct your paths."

But what we don’t always consider is the question is open doors/closed doors a way God directs us. I can give you a firm, "maybe" on that one. The Bible does not say this approach is either valid or invalid. The Apostle Paul used language like "a door was opened to me" to describe how he decided where he should go next in his mission to tell people who had never heard the story and teachings of Jesus. I’ve used this approach in the past and I think many of you have too. I’m where I am today, doing what I’m doing, in part because of doors that opened up for me and my family that we walked through. This tool does work.

We need to realize is something many skeptics know, people across the globe and across time have also successfully used this approach whether they have any concept of God in their worldview and beliefs or whether they are totally fatalistic. This way of making choices seems to work for people regardless of whether or not we claim God is involved. Can God guide us using open doors and closed doors? Sure, especially if we do ask him to. We just need to realize this approach doesn’t necessarily require God direct intervention to work and we really can’t prove conclusively by using this method that God was involved.

2. The perfect verse – This method of being guided by God is used by people who believe the Bible is their personal guidebook for life. Again, the Bible would support the basic idea that the Scriptures are a tool God uses to guide people. David reflected this belief when he wrote in Psalm 119:105: "[God] Your word is a lamp for my feet and a light for my path."

Here’s how "The perfect verse" approach works: Let’s say someone is offered a job that requires them to move. He is struggling with whether this is the right thing to do. He has a heart for God, wants to be guided by Him, and reads his Bible as away to keep in touch with God. One morning he opens up his Bible or favorite devotional book and comes across this verse from Genesis 12:1: "Then the Lord told Abram, "Leave your country, your relatives, and your father's house, and go to the land that I will show you."

Our Bible-reading friend thinks, "I didn’t choose this verse, it’s like it chose me." Wow! "This must be it …its God’s answer! He jumps up, shouting, "Honey grab the kids, pack the car, we’re moving to Montana!" See any problems? One problem is that those words were given by God specifically to a guy named Abram who lived about 4,000 years ago. Those words weren’t put in the Bible to be a prescription for someone’s future. They’re a description of what God did for one man a long time ago. If you read the full story of Abram’s life you’ll learn tons about how God guides people. Things like God doesn’t always choose to give us all the details of what he’s doing up front, things like following God may demand huge trust and faith on are part as well as some tests of those things along the way. But pulling one verse out of this great story of faith as a personal sign or message from God, is shaky ground spiritually. Let me tell you why.

Using the Bible this way seems very mystical, but when we use God’s Word like this, what we’re actually doing is treating the Bible like a magic 8 Ball, or a ouija board, we read through it and see what pops up. Nowhere in the Scripture does God ever tell us to use the Bible this way. The Scriptures do teach that one of the main purposes of God’s Word is to guide us, but we are never told this happens through verses taken completely out of their normal context or through verses that mystically appear in answer to our specific situations or the personal decisions we’re facing.

For some of us, this may be hard truth. But I have an obligation to call us to honor God and his Word by calling attention to things that are not the best practices when it comes to discovering and doing God’s will.

A third spiritual balloon needs to be popped, because it has caused countless Christians all kinds of guilt and frustration as they’ve sought to follow God. It’s called:

3. Seeking the center of God’s will - Look all you want, but you’ll never find this phrase anywhere in the Bible. Someone years ago created this idea to challenge Christ followers to do their best to find and live in exact place where God wants them. Not a bad idea or goal. Unfortunately, over the years the concept of living in the center of God’s will has been used to guilt those who fail and sin to try harder. Living in the center of God’s will came to mean being 100 percent of the time 100 percent devoted God.

Seeking to find and live in the "center of God’s will" does a great job of creating spiritual paranoia in anyone who buys into this concept because it is an all or nothing proposition. I’m either in the center of God’s will or I’m out. This approach turns God’s will for us into a target. Our choices and actions are the arrows we carry and God becomes the official score keeper who is disappointed any time we miss the bull’s eye or exact center of what he wants for our lives. If you’ve ever tried to live anything like this out, you’ve probably discovered that the pressure of trying to hit God’s bull’s eye every time only creates a constant fear of missing the mark. Who needs or wants that kind of pressure?

One person described living with this kind of all or nothing approach to God is like placing ourselves on a spiritual tight rope. To make one mistake, to take one misstep, is to fall off the rope and out of God’s favor.

trying to walk God’s tightrope only creates in us a fear of falling. This is a very effective way to make our relationship with God all about guilt, personal failure, and shame. It’s one of the best ways to get us to second guess our choices and makes us obsessed with wondering if God is happy with us or upset with us.

When Christ-followers depend on things like open and closed doors or ‘the perfect verse’ to guide us, and when we buy into approaches to God that make us crazy about whether we are in or out with God, we perpetuate the myth that says we’re clueless when it comes to finding clear direction for our lives.

If we’ve done any of this kind of stuff, have we blown it with God? I don’t think so. God knows our hearts and our desire to be led by him. God is bigger than our misunderstandings and can find a way to guide all true seekers in the direction he wants us to go.

In the Bible’s book of Psalms we read this about God’s ability and attitude toward people who want to be led by him. Psalm 37:23-24 says, "The steps of the godly are directed by the Lord. He delights in every detail of their lives. Though they stumble, they will not fall, for the Lord holds them by the hand".

God delights in our lives, even when we stumble and fall, he won’t let go of those who give him their hand and say, please God, guide me. That’s a great verse that encourages us to take the pressure off and live in God’s care and grace. But there’s more. There are three things God wants you to know:

When Jesus walked our earth, he dedicated a lot of his teaching time to clearing up misconceptions about God. One misconception was that God is hard to reach, hard to get anything from and that only those who really earn it get God’s blessings. Jesus described God’s heart toward his children like this from Matthew 7:7-11: "Keep on asking, and you will be given what you ask for. Keep on looking, and you will find. Keep on knocking, and the door will be opened. For everyone who asks, receives. Everyone who seeks, finds. And the door is opened to everyone who knocks. You parents—if your children ask for a loaf of bread, do you give them a stone instead? Or if they ask for a fish, do you give them a snake? Of course not! If you sinful people know how to give good gifts to your children, how much more will your heavenly Father give good gifts to those who ask Him."

God isn’t saying come to me and we’ll play the open door, closed door game. He’s telling us, my door is always open to you because my heart is always open to you. If you want something from me, just ask. Jesus makes a great comparison between God and human parents. What good parent doesn’t give their kids not only what they need but also they want. Jesus is asking, should we expect any less from God? Answer: No way! We’re told God is more than willing to give us the things that will meet our needs. But, like any good parent, we need to allow God the option of deciding, you don’t really need that or you don’t need that yet, or you really need something else. Jesus main point is this: We don’t have to doubt God’s love or his willingness to listen to us and give us what we need. We just need to do what God says, knock on his door and ask. If you can pray, you can do this. No spiritual tricks or mystical manipulations required!

Whenever Jesus talked to people about the laws of God he always tried to get them to understand that God’s laws were not given to hem them in or restrict them but to protect them from harming themselves and hurting others by doing things that are always destructive. In Matthew 19:19-20 as Jesus is talking to a young rich guy about his spiritual state, Jesus recites a short list of some of God’s laws. What I want us to do is look over this list. Here it is from Matthew 19:18 & 19: "…Do not murder. Do not commit adultery. Do not steal. Do not testify falsely. Honor your father and mother, love your neighbors as yourself."

Let’s take a run through these to see how this works. Murder definitely harms other people, the murdered, all his or her family and friends and the family and friends of the murderer. God says, don’t do that, it has no good results. God say the same is true of committing adultery with someone else’s husband or wife, everyone loses! Stealing, telling mistruths about others, none of these things can be done without tearing apart individual lives and relationships. Dishonor and disrespect your parents and you cut off the support and guidance of the people most committed to you, invest in caring for yourself alone and give no love to the people around you and you will find yourself in a cold, lonely love starved existence.

As a good King over our world God says, follow the laws I created and you’ll avoid a lot of the bad stuff of life, break them and you find out hw bad life and relationships can get. I give these laws to you not to ruin your lives but to fill them with love and happiness. When it comes to decisions and choices we have to make on a daily basis, God’s laws cover a majority of the issues we’ll face.

In the Bible’s book of wisdom, The Proverbs make some amazing promises to people who will seek wisdom for life from him, God says he will fill us with all the wisdom we need to help us have the right stuff to consistently make good and right decisions. This wisdom comes from God into us and then works its way out as we use what God has taught us to weigh our options and understand the ramifications of them. Understand God isn’t talking about some mystical experience that instantly can transform idiots into geniuses. What were talking about is entering God’s school of wisdom where we do the hard work of studying the scriptures and building our thinking structures, values and beliefs from the stuff God teaches us from the Bible. Listen or follow along as I read God’s promises of wisdom to those willing to go for it: Proverbs 2:2-6 says, Tune your ears to wisdom, and concentrate on understanding. Cry out for insight and understanding. Search for them as you would for lost money or hidden treasure. Then you will understand what it means to fear the Lord, and you will gain knowledge of God.

Tune your ears …concentrate…Cry out for insight and understanding …search as hard as you would for a lost paycheck…When we put in that kind of effort, we’re told we’ll first understand, better than ever before, how much respect and worship (fear) God deserves and we’ll also come to know God better than ever. God promises us he will give us wisdom, knowledge and understanding that come to us straight from him.

Think about that for a moment. If I exposed myself to the teachings of God in such a way that God’s own wisdom became a part of me, a part of how I think, how would that impact my actions and reactions, my thoughts and behaviors?

If we’ll do the work, if we’ll enter God’s school of wisdom, listen and concentrate and learn, look at the wild results God promises us: Proverbs 2:9-10 says, Then you will understand what is right, just, and fair, and you will know how to find the right course of action every time. For wisdom will enter your heart, and knowledge will fill you with joy.

I don’t know about you, but I would like the ability to know what is right and just and fair in all the circumstances that confront me at work out in the community and at home, and I’d love to know how to find the right course of action every time I face a choice. I love to be filled with the joy of knowing I’m doing life God’s way, the wise way.

This isn’t magic. This is the real deal of discovering God’s will and living it out. This is the grand union of the mystery and wisdom of God combining with the reality of people like us and our daily lives.