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Sometimes we keep asking God for clarity, even after we’ve received his insights and prayed about our decision. It’s not necessarily because we’re not hearing him. Sometimes we’re just second-guessing whether we’re ready to decide.

Part of this is knowing we’ll have to live with painful consequences if we get a big decision wrong. We may have already taken time to try out different options and gather the puzzle pieces that will help us see what to do. But once we get to the point where we have to decide, we may wonder whether we’re hesitating for a good reason or just because we’re afraid of messing things up.

That’s where self-doubt can show up. How do we know whether the doubt we still feel means we haven’t gathered enough puzzle pieces yet, or whether we’re second-guessing the pieces we already have?

At Some Point, an Experiment Has to Become a Decision

I ran into this when I tried to start a network marketing business selling air and water purifiers. For promotion, I was trained to leave an air purifier and marketing materials in someone’s house to see if their seasonal allergies improved over a few days. At the end, I was supposed to show them the difference in airborne germs using a petri dish, then pick up the machine and guide the conversation in a way that led to a sale.

I did it, but it didn’t feel natural to me. Then I considered switching companies and hosting parties for overpriced homemaking items. Being an introvert, that didn’t sound fun, so I looked for opportunities where I could drive all my traffic online.

I made a deal to drop-ship microfiber cloths and set up a website that offered the purifiers and my smaller-ticket items. This felt better. I even wrote a guest post for my blogger friend who liked the cloths and used my free sample.

I made some sales, but I had zero motivation to keep pouring my time into figuring out how to drive traffic, so it fizzled out. At some point, an experiment has to become a decision.

What If I Make the Wrong Decision?

When the consequences could be serious, when the decision affects money, marriage, family, work, relocation, or a long-term commitment, we want more than just permission to experiment. We’re worried about having to pay the price later for our unwise choices and those of others.

When the puzzle pieces still don’t fit together, it can remind us of the times before when we may have skipped over certain parts of the discernment process and been hurt by what happened. Then we start wondering whether God expected us to do something differently.

That makes us wonder, “What if it’s me? What if I’m the problem? I keep second-guessing myself.” We may start examining our prayer life too, wondering whether we’re missing something God wants to show us.

How do I know whether the doubt I still feel means I haven’t gathered enough puzzle pieces yet, or whether I’m second-guessing the pieces I already have? That question can keep us circling a decision long after we’ve started praying about it.

God’s Will Isn’t a Hidden Golden Pathway

You can understand that you’re developing the plan in partnership with God and still assume that being a good partner means matching your desires to his. Replacing your will with God’s will becomes the whole point, instead of having an honest conversation about where your thoughts, feelings, and desires might be different from his.

Sometimes we avoid that conversation because the puzzle pieces are starting to show us where we feel broken. A piece that doesn’t fit can feel like it’s bringing up issues we don’t know how to resolve.

When the puzzle pieces don’t fit together, self-doubt can take over right at the point where an honest conversation with him should continue to happen. This short-circuits the whole process because even when you’re doubting yourself, you still need some way to get the decision made.

Without a good way to take the pieces of the decision one by one, you might fall back on coping mechanisms instead. You might ask for counsel from other people before you’ve really discussed the decision with God, give up on the discernment process and use your best judgment, or wait until the situation gets worse and other people step in to make the decision.

Why Past Decisions Can Make You Doubt Yourself

At this point, you know you haven’t really prayed through the unresolved questions, and that can cause even more self-doubt. You just don’t know how to have an honest conversation with God about how your thoughts and feelings are different from his.

Over time, this gap can become a snowball. In the end, what you really want to avoid is developing a pattern of bad choices. If you’ve already paid that price before, of course that history is going to cause more insecurity whenever another important decision comes along.

But when you learn how to make healthy decisions in partnership with God, you can see why your past decisions didn’t all work out well. There may have been pieces of the discernment process you simply didn’t know about yet, so you thought you’d misunderstood God’s will.

You may have paid for a bad choice because you were still getting to know how God interacts with you. It wasn’t because you were unworthy of having a partnership with him that heals you and directs your steps.

There are just things you learn about interacting with God that you simply don’t know in the beginning. Those are puzzle pieces too. If you interpret painful experiences as evidence that you can’t trust yourself, you’ll keep doubting yourself instead of giving yourself the time to slow down and pray through each step of the decision.

Start by Getting the Puzzle Pieces All Out on the Table

First, it’s important to slow down long enough to get all the pieces of the puzzle out on the table. Slowing down means letting the love relationship, not the decision, be the central piece of the equation.

Start by giving your feelings, desires, and thoughts each a different spot in your journal.

Under feelings, tell God how you’re feeling about your situation and what your gut is telling you might be the right thing to do.

Under desires, tell God what you actually want more than anything else. Not what other people want, but what if you could do whatever you wanted? 

Then, considering all this, write under thoughts what makes sense to you at this point and what seems best in this situation.

Looking at these one at a time helps you consider how they might relate to God’s feelings, desires, and thoughts in the Bible. This isn’t so you can pray just the right way to discover God’s hidden golden pathway for you. These are simply some ways I’ve used to partner with the Holy Spirit in my decision-making.

Use the Ask, Write, Test Process to Talk With God

Now use the Ask, Write, Test process to bring these pieces into conversation with God. Ask what he wants you to know about each of these thoughts, feelings, and desires. Write down whatever comes to mind, then test it with what you know about God from the Bible. Is this something God might be showing you?

If you aren’t already familiar with how to do this, the full Ask, Write, Test process is laid out in our “Hearing God Starter Kit.” You can get it for free at Sophiculture.com/guide.

Once you know what God might be showing you, look for any pieces of the puzzle that still don’t fit together in your mind. Is there anything you might be thinking, feeling, or wanting that still doesn’t fit with the decision you’d like to make?

If it’s all coming together, you may be ready to look at the big picture and make a choice. But if you still have some strong feelings and desires that don’t seem to fit into the big picture, there might be some red flags that show you where your conversation with the Lord still needs to continue.

What If You Still Can’t See the Big Picture?

At this point, you’ve had a heart-to-heart conversation with God, but you still can’t see the big picture clearly. Now you need to figure out whether there are more puzzle pieces you need.

You may need to take more time and try a different approach. Or you may need to do some deeper biblical study on this topic. Maybe you need qualified counsel from someone else, or some combination of these three things.

If there’s one biblical principle that keeps coming back to you as you think about this, you might want to study it in context so you can tell how it best applies to your situation. In the Hearing God Starter Kit, we have a tutorial for “The Long Way” at the bottom to guide you through this study for hearing God.

This gives you some contexts to look at and brings in another supporting passage to reinforce that principle and help you see God’s point of view more clearly. If you’ve never done an in-depth Bible study on your own before, you might want to get someone’s help to apply God’s biblical wisdom to your situation.

When Qualified Counsel Is the Missing Puzzle Piece

Maybe there’s a certain part of your decision that someone else might understand better than you do because they’ve dealt with decisions like this before. Look for someone who has lived through, studied, or helped others make wise choices in this kind of situation.

Ask what substantial experience the person has with this particular kind of decision. Remember that just because someone is good at helping people make decisions doesn’t make them qualified to guide you in this particular area of your life.

When you’re ready to meet with someone for biblical counsel, show them what you’ve journaled during your Ask, Write, Test process. This will show them the questions you’ve already prayed about and the specific red flags where you need a wider perspective.

Go Back to the Decision You’ve Been Second-Guessing

Now imagine going back to a decision you’ve been second-guessing. You’ve got your thoughts, feelings, and desires written out in front of you, you’ve talked through them with God, and now you can see where the red flags actually are.

Because you’ve developed your own puzzle pieces with God first, you can seek counsel about a particular red flag from someone qualified instead of having to listen to whoever wants to give you advice. Since you’ve given your thoughts, feelings, and desires their own areas in your journal, you also have a way to keep turning the pieces over in your mind as you look at different angles instead of giving up and relying on your best judgment alone.

Now that you can see what still needs attention, you’re able to recognize whether you need more time, deeper biblical study, or qualified counsel. This is how you’ll end up having enough pieces to decide before time runs out and you have to make your decision by default.

There comes a point in every discernment process where you make the decision. That’s what happened when my business experiment finally fizzled out.

Your Relationship With God is there to Enjoy

My experiences gave me the pieces I needed so that my thoughts, feelings, and desires could eventually show me that it was time to shift gears. The golden pathway wasn’t something I’d missed because I’d gone off God’s track.

It was actually the whole relational process that allowed my experiments to become a decision once I’d tried different things that weren’t working. Because I knew my relationship with God was for fun, not for getting everything just right, I treated him like a loving, supportive father.

I didn’t have to shortcut my thoughts, feelings, or desires just to match what I thought God wanted for me. I could keep bringing all of it into the prayer conversation while we enjoyed watching the situation unfold together.

Of course, not every decision gives you room to experiment. Some choices are too risky or irreversible, so the puzzle pieces you need may come through deeper study or qualified counsel instead.

But the point is that God enjoys using all these experiences to show us his love and support. You’re not trying to force yourself into the mold of God’s will so you can please him. You’re bringing your differences into the relationship so that you can understand yourself more and more.

Relationship Comes Before Getting Everything Right

Alignment with the God of scripture still matters. It just grows out of honest conversation instead of replacing it. The relationship comes first because this is where you learn how God actually treats you as his adored child.

So here’s what makes it possible to move forward without self-doubt. The golden pathway isn’t golden because it’s a plan you can miss out on. It’s golden because even when we go outside his perfect thoughts and desires, he can bring us back inside them at any time.

Sure, we often have to pay the price for our own unwise choices and those of others. Even these consequences don’t mean we’ve been separated from God’s love or from the teamwork he uses to keep solving our problems.

The golden pathway is a creative process of partnership that will always bring redemption eventually, even if it hurts and even when that hurt isn’t our fault. So we can be content right where we are, knowing that nothing can separate us from his love and therefore from this creative teamwork.

He’s the author and finisher of our faith, and that faith brings us into the kind of friendship that lights the path forward. By seeing his will come together in our journal, we’re free to walk by faith instead of whatever we see in front of us.

Let’s Pray This

Lord, I’m so glad I don’t have to figure out how to stay in your will. I like feeling comfortable talking with you about my decisions and facing my fears. You’ve taught me that obedience means being available to hear your desire and stay in the conversation until we think in harmony.

Remind me that our golden path is always in front of me, wide enough for me to try new things and narrow enough to stay inside your boundaries of love. Show me your way in my journal this week, so I can trust that the insight I need will be right there for me, just when I need it. Amen.

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Next Steps:

Get our free “Hearing God Starter Kit” and learn the journaling process at:

Sophiculture.com/guide

Get personalized support to build a thriving friendship with Jesus at:

Sophiculture.com/illumination