Is God Hiding Your Future Behind Door Number Three
When I was a kid, sometimes my mom and I would watch Let's Make a Deal Hosted by Monty Hall. This is the show where contestants chose between doors (or boxes/curtains) to win prizes.
Carol Merrill was the original model who stood by the doors and displayed the prizes. You never knew if you were going to blindly choose a box that had the keys to a new car or choose what you thought was a luxury item in a large space, but when the curtain came back, it would turn out to be just a goat.
There are moments when you would give almost anything for God to just tell you what to do.
Two options sit in front of you. Both are reasonable. You’ve prayed. Maybe you’ve fasted. You’ve asked people you respect. You’ve read your Bible hoping something would jump off the page. You’re watching doors open and close, trying to decide whether that phone call yesterday meant something.
And everyone seems to have a method. One friend says you’ll have peace. Another says God will open the door. Someone else simply says, “God told me.”
That last one can sting. Because God doesn’t seem to talk to you like that. So you start to wonder whether something is wrong with you. Maybe you’re not close enough to him. Maybe you’re not spiritual enough to hear.
And quietly, a career decision has become a referendum on your relationship with God.
The belief powering the fear
I want to ask a question. What would you have to believe about God for this much anxiety to make sense?
The meticulous sovereignty approach
Usually it goes something like this. God has a detailed plan for my life. Inside that plan is one correct choice for every important decision. God knows it. I don’t. My job is to discover what he has already decided. And if I miss the signal, I could end up out of his will, living Plan B. Then Plan C. God knows the will where I’m supposed to end up, which was chosen before I was even born, but He’s holding the cards really close to His chest. I’ve got to become really good at guessing so I can figure it out.
That is an exhausting way to live. It turns the Christian life into signal detection. Open doors, closed doors, feelings, dreams, coincidences, verses.
I’m not saying God never speaks. He does. I’m not saying the Holy Spirit doesn’t lead. He does. Prayer matters deeply. But I want to ask whether this is the picture of mature people that Jesus actually produced.
What Jesus was building
Watch how Jesus worked with his disciples. Yes, he gave commands. Follow me. Go here. Don’t do that.
But look at the direction of their growth. He taught them. He let them watch him. He corrected their motives. He showed them how God thinks about money, power, enemies, forgiveness, and the poor. Then he sent them out to deal with real people in real situations, without him standing beside them making every call.
Jesus wasn’t just handing out answers. He was forming judgment—discernment, wisdom.
He ends the Sermon on the Mount talking about two builders. One builds on rock, one on sand. The difference is simple: one hears what Jesus says and actually does it in his life as a habit based on principle.
We can spend enormous energy hunting for God’s specific will on things he hasn’t made clear (whether to be a plumber or a pilot), while walking right past what he has made very clear. Be honest. Forgive everyone for everything. Be generous. Keep your word even if it hurts you. Love your enemies and stop the cycle of resentment. Seek the kingdom first and above all.
Most of God’s will isn’t hidden at all.
And look at Jesus himself. Perfectly aligned with the Father, yet never passive. He doesn’t sit around waiting for a fleece, a confirmation, or a dream so he can know what to do.
He chooses. He initiates. He crosses the lake, climbs the mountain, withdraws, rests. He isn’t frantic about falling out of the Father’s will. His alignment produces freedom to act.
When a child is 4 years old, you have to tell them everything. What to wear. To put on their shoes before they leave the house. To look both ways before crossing the street. But if a 40-year-old stands pleading before you, saying, “Please, please tell me which shirt to wear today” we wouldn’t say that man is really close to his parents. We’d say there’s something wrong with him.
Good parents don’t raise a forty-year-old who needs to be told which shirt to wear. They raise an adult who can carry responsibility. That’s what Jesus is doing with you.
A different prayer
So alongside “God, tell me what to do,” try praying this: Jesus, make me the kind of person who can be trusted to decide.
Show me the fear driving me. The greed. The insecurity. The thing I want so badly I’m trying to get you to sign off on it even though I know it’s probably the wrong way. Then help me choose.
Here’s a little help in making decisions.
When you’re facing a decision, bring five questions to it:
Has Jesus already made something clear that applies here?
What does wisdom say, apart from fear and wishful thinking?
What do I actually want? Your desires aren’t infallible, but they aren’t automatically wrong either. As a person with agency and dominion over their own life, what do you want and need right now. What are you trying to accomplish?
What do a few wise people who know me and know Jesus see?
What does my reality reasonably allow? Money, family, health, timing, commitments. These things place helpful boundaries on our lives, and we can’t always move them. If you have a weighty family responsibility, you may have to scale down your ambitions a bit and do a little less than you might do if you were single and had no family.
Pray. Listen. And if you’ve done all of that and God still hasn’t told you what to do, make a decision. Not carelessly. Freely. Then own it.
You won’t get every one right. I haven’t. I don’t think the goal is getting to the end of your life, looking back, and saying, “I made every single decision perfectly.”
We basically create ourselves and the story of our lives through the decisions that we make. So use your agency and make decisions. I don’t think Jesus is trying to make you good at guessing God’s will from a collection of dreams and conversations and coincidences. I think he’s trying to make you wise, loving, courageous, and free. Fully human.
What if knowing God’s will is less about finding the right answer and more about becoming the right kind of person?
Go deeper
Following Jesus is the heart of my book ReJesus Everything: Jesus himself, reclaimed from everything built around him, and the God-given agency to own your faith and your life. If this episode stirred something in you, the book will take you further. You can find it here on Amazon.
This week: What decision are you waiting for God to make for you? Let’s talk about it.
