We’ve all been there before. Maybe you’re deciding what job to apply for, what school to try to get in to, what person to ask out on a date, or something else that could potentially be life-altering. These are not light decisions made in haste.

But how often have we been weighing up these decisions and said to ourselves “this is what I’m meant to do. This is my calling. This is RIGHT!”

But maybe… it’s not.

That might sound incredibly deflating, possibly even soul-crushing. But we need to ask ourselves: when we’re making these possibly monumental decisions, and giving our all into making them happen, do we feel called by the Holy Spirit? Are our actions being led by God?

There’s a simple way to find out: pray. After all, God answers all of our prayers in His own way (even if the answer is sometimes “no” or something we don’t like).

If something we’re doing is meant to be, God will make it happen. And if it’s not… well, odds are God has something better – be it a better job, school, partner or anything – planned for us in the future; we just need to be patient. 

And when God calls us to do something, it’s a good idea to listen. In the Old Testament, we learn about how a man named Jonah ignored God’s calling to go preach to the people of Nineveh. Rather than go to the city to tell its citizens to repent of their sins, as God commanded, Jonah instead boards a ship heading in the opposite direction to Tarshish. The price Jonah pays: being swallowed by a whale, and spending three days in its belly to think about where he went wrong. Not exactly a pleasant place to contemplate your life choices.

By all means, it’s of critical importance for us to pursue our dreams (no-one wants to look back on their life regretting they were bolder and took more chances, right?). Yet when we’re doing so, we need to make sure we’re acting in Spirit – that God is guiding our actions. And when we do that, we have nothing to worry about – He is looking out for us. Now and forever.