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Brittany Ann is an ECPA bestselling author, speaker, and founder of EquippingGodlyWomen.com, a popular Christian-living website dedicated to helping busy Christian moms find practical ways to go “all in” in faith and family.
Brittany is the author of books including “Fall in Love with God’s Word: Practical Strategies for Busy Women” and “Follow God’s Will: Biblical Strategies for Everyday Life.”
Her work has been featured on CBN, The Christian Post, Crosswalk, and more.
I’m super excited that Brittany joined us on the podcast to talk all about God’s will and His plan for our life. We also talk about how to figure out what that is and how to follow that plan with boldness and courage. This is a great topic to be digging into and I think it’s something that a lot of us think about.
Brittany and I jumped right in to discuss her thoughts on if God has a specific plan for everyone’s life and if so, how can we discover ours?
If we read Ephesians 2:10, it says, “For we are God’s handiwork, created in Christ Jesus to do good works, which God prepared in advance for us to do.” So this verse isn’t just talking about pastors or missionaries or people who have a Christian profession where it’s their job to go spread the gospel. This is saying that all people, whether that’s moms or single people or married people, whether you work outside the home or in the home, or whatever age you are, we are all created by Christ Jesus in order to do good works. Brittany shares that it’s going to vary a lot on which works God has called us to which is something that is just so beautiful about Christianity…that He creates us all differently. We are all unique with our own different unique talents and skills and abilities and God uses each of us in completely different ways. And when we all work together, then we can all build up the kingdom in our own unique ways.
That’s so beautiful, right? And I think that really it boils down to, as a believer, our purpose and our calling. So, all of us that follow Jesus, our purpose is the same. We were created to know God, to love God, to share about God, and to point others towards God. We were created for God’s pleasure. We are His handiwork, His masterpiece, and we are to show His glory through the way that we live our life and to love Him and live for Him. That is our purpose in a nutshell as believers. And then the way that we walk that out in our own individual ways with our unique gifts and talents, that’s what I would call our calling, the way that God asks us to live out our purpose. And I do think that that’s all a part of God’s will for our life.
Discovering God’s Will for Your Life
Now, when it comes to discovering or gaining clarity around our calling and God’s will for us, Brittany shares that it isn’t always easy in some ways. We know some things are God’s will for our life because the Bible says so for all believers. So, for example, as we read in Matthew 22:37-40, this is when Jesus is saying that the greatest command of all, the most important thing that we can do as believers is for us to “Love the Lord your God with all your heart, and with all your soul, and all your mind.” And He tells us that this is the first and greatest commandment. And then, “The second is like it, Love your neighbor as yourself.” And He tells us that all the Law and the Prophets hang on these two commandments.
So whatever it is that God is calling us to do, whether big or small, and He has called us to do both, no matter what it is, we always know that the first and most important thing that is always going to be God’s will for our life, is that we would love Him and love others. So, no matter what we do, everything else flows out of that. So, the first thing that we’re going to do is to love. Now, we’re going to do that a little bit differently. Yes, we will love God by obeying His commandments, and yes, we will love others, but that might look a little bit differently. And then that’s when we get into the part where it’s not always so easy to discern.
So, there are a lot of different ways that God could call us to love our neighbor. For example, maybe God is calling you to simply bring a meal to somebody who has recently been in the hospital or had a baby or had some kind of issue going on in their family. And maybe that’s how God wants to use you to bless someone else today. Or maybe He’s calling you to start a nonprofit or maybe He’s calling you to do any number of things. Maybe He’s calling you to take a specific job, even if it just seems like oh, it’s just a job. Well, maybe God has you there for a reason. And I think that it can be a little bit more difficult to figure out those kinds of callings in our life just because we don’t always know what God has planned. And so it really has to start with getting in God’s word and figuring out okay, what does God tell us, for all believers? What are the things that He says “This is my work, for all of you because this is for your good, it is for your benefit. I’m telling you, I want you to go this way because this is the way that is good and right for you. And don’t go this way because that way is bad and you will regret it if you go that way.” So I think we start there with what we do know from the Scripture. And there’s so much in the scripture to help us live those good lives and to have a good relationship with a God who loves us.
And then from there, it gets a little trickier just trying to figure out okay, how did God create me specifically? What did He create me to do? Brittany’s book, “Follow God’s Will” is all about just trying to figure out okay, once I have figured out what God wants all believers to do, what does God want me specifically to do?
And there’s a lot of ways that we can do that. For example, looking at what opportunities are all around us. So, if you know your neighbor just told you, “Hey, I’m really struggling with this thing.” Well, maybe you’re the one who’s supposed to take care of that. Not everyone has the ability to help your neighbor with this area, but you’re their neighbor. You’re their literal neighbor right next to them. So, you’re in a position where you can help. So noticing the opportunities all around you and also noticing your own unique strengths and gifts and abilities. What are the things that you are good at that maybe not everybody else can do? If you are really good at accounting or design or you’re really great at watching children or you’re really great at baking a casserole or you’re really great at coaching girl’s sports…I don’t believe that God has given us these gifts and abilities so that we can just keep them to ourselves or so that we can back ourselves up with, “Oh, I’m so good at this.” But He gives us all of these unique gifts and abilities so that we can use them for others. God has gifted you with those skills for a reason.
And you can also just think about what things you love, what are you naturally passionate about, what things really interest you? If there’s things that you love, God has given you those desires and those passions for a reason. Some things we just enjoy, because, I mean, God wants us to enjoy things. He wants us to be happy. And yes, there are things we just love. But we can also use that to help other people.
I absolutely love everything Brittany shared there. And it’s kind of like this giant, wonderful puzzle, in a sense. You can think of our purpose as like the cornerstone piece and then everything else kind of builds off of that. Our gifts, our talents, our strengths and abilities the things that we’re passionate about, the things that light us up, things that we’ve walked through, things that we’ve been through, our testimony, our trials…when you begin to journal out and think about all those different things, you will begin to see some overlap and you will begin to see those puzzle pieces coming together and creating a clear picture for your life of your purpose and your calling and God’s will. It’s a fun, interesting, and exciting discovery journey of figuring this out and how fulfilling it is once we put pieces to the puzzle together to actually walk that out. I think when we’re walking in God’s will, there are just doors of opportunity opening like never before. I feel like there are blessings like never before, even as we serve others and point others to Jesus. It is fulfilling in such a way that things of this world could never fulfill and it’s really awesome.
3 Common Myths that People Tend to Believe about God’s Will
Brittany shares that as we are looking for God’s will, if we’re looking for the wrong thing, we’re not going to find it. So, it’s so important to first know what God’s will is not before we can get into what God’s will actually is so you know what we’re looking for.
In her book, Brittany talks about three of the most common myths that people often have about God’s will and the first one is that God only has one big will for your whole entire life. A lot of times when people think about God’s will for their life, they’re thinking of this one big thing. What is the thing that God wants me to do with my entire life? But God has multiple calls on our lives all throughout our lives. The way that we follow God when we’re 10 is going to look different than the way we follow God when we’re 20 or 40 or 80. And that doesn’t mean that any of those callings are bad. God just isn’t going to let our lives go to waste. He’s going to use all of us in different ways all throughout our lives.
So oftentimes, we can miss out on what God wants us to do on a smaller level because we’re only thinking okay, what is the big thing? When maybe it should be, what is God’s will for my life today? How can I love and serve God today right where I am? And when we start each day with that question of “How can I love God today, how can I serve Him?” then it really opens our minds to see there’s opportunities all around us every day that we can serve God and that we can love Him and love others.
The second myth is very closely related to that, but it is that God’s will always involves a big decision. But sometimes it doesn’t. As we talked about a minute ago, the first rule for life is to love Him and to love others. And there’s lots of different ways that you can do that. So, in addition to thinking of those big decisions that we’re going to make over the course of our life, these big life-changing decisions, it’s also in the little decisions. When we make these little decisions, these day-to-day habits that we have, these day-to-day reactions, the way that we behave on a random Tuesday, the way that we behave on a consistent basis, those shape who we are. They shape the relationships that we have and they set us on a trajectory.
So, it’s really easy to be of the opinion that, you know, what I do this afternoon doesn’t matter. I’m not doing any big things for God right now. So, it’s fine if I waste my afternoon or it’s fine if I make this one small decision that really isn’t the best for me. Not that we can never have time to relax or that every single thing has to be super spiritual, but the choices that we make on a day-to-day basis give us opportunities every day. How do we love God? How do we love others? And how do we set ourselves on a path for practicing having that obedience, for practicing listening to God, for practicing following Him and trusting Him? You start small. God asks us to first do the small thing and show Him that you can be a good steward of what He has given you and that you’re going to practice obeying Him and trusting Him.
The third myth is that God’s will is always super spiritual. And again, we’ve kind of talked about this already but God doesn’t always call us to be priests or pastors or missionaries or anything that has to be super spiritual. Oftentimes, again, it’s just loving and serving the people around you and being a good light of what it means to be a Christian. And yes, He does give us this calling and maybe someday He’ll call you to something super spiritual, but it starts in just the day-to-day with how do I be an amazing Christian woman right where God has placed me right now.
What Brittany shared there actually really speaks to me on a very personal level, both in this season of life that I’m in right now and the season that I know is coming next. And as I reflect back on my own life, the different seasons that I’ve walked through and the seasons within our family and how things tend to just ebb and flow, knowing that that’s okay and receiving the permission for that to be okay is really sort of freeing.
Practical Tips to Hear God’s Voice
It can be really tricky to hear God’s voice if you’re not used to hearing Him, if you don’t know what it sounds like, or if you don’t know how to hear His voice in the first place. So, the first thing that Brittany recommends is if you want to hear God’s voice, then pray and ask Him to hear His voice because God wants to speak to us. He does speak to us all the time, it’s just that sometimes we aren’t listening or if we are trying to listen, we don’t know what we’re listening for. So, what we can do is just pray and say, “God, please speak to me loudly and clearly. Help me to hear you, help me to understand you.” Brittany shares that she often prays and asks God to speak so clearly and so loudly that she cannot deny that it is Him, that she can hear Him and not miss it. Because sometimes He does talk in a gentle whisper and quiet voice, not because He doesn’t want us to hear Him, but because He wants us to slow down.
So often our lives are just full of noise so just creating that space for quiet is so important. Because if your head is just constantly filled with noise, it’s really hard to hear God speaking. So, first pray and ask Him to speak a little louder and then also take time to get quiet. I know we can’t do that for hours a day, that’s not practical for most of us. But just in the small minutes that we do have…maybe if you come home and you wait five minutes in the car before you go in, maybe you wake up 15 minutes before your kids are up or stay up 15 minutes after they go to bed and you just have a little bit quiet of time. Maybe you just go for a walk around your neighborhood to get a few minutes of quiet time.
And then another really huge thing that Brittany mentions is getting in God’s word. We often think, “Okay, I want God to speak to me.” Well, He is speaking to you. He wrote us this whole entire book and it’s full of lots of knowledge. It’s full of love and wisdom. We don’t even have to have quiet to be able to read God’s word, it’s right there. Yes, it’s amazing and wonderful when God speaks to us individually and privately, but He has also given us His word which is full of so much of His voice and His character and His wisdom and His knowledge and we don’t want to just skip over that.
And then as we are in God’s word regularly, whatever that looks like for you in the season of life that you’re in, you start to know what God’s voice sounds like…this is what He values, this is what He wants for us, this is His will, this is what He likes, this is what He doesn’t like. And the more that you can know God through Him speaking to you through His word, the more you can start to recognize His voice so that when you do start to hear Him speak, you can distinguish that yes, that sounds like the God that I know from the Bible. Yes, that is in line with His character. It can be really difficult to tell, especially with our own voices and thoughts in our heads throughout the day…is that just me and my own thoughts? Is that God talking to me, or is that the enemy talking? And if you’re not used to listening, it’s very difficult to know at first.
There are a lot of questions that we can ask ourselves to help us know if it’s God’s voice that we’re hearing, and Brittany shared a few of them here:
- Does the thought, idea, or action line up with scripture?
- Does it make sense in light of what God has already asked me to do?
- Is it true and logical?
- Does it contribute to the good of others, or only to yourself? Does it honor God or only yourself?
- What is the likely outcome of this choice?
So, as much as you are able just to, take the time to stop, pause and reflect and pray about it. Ask God for wisdom and direction, and He’s going to answer those prayers.
Those questions are solid gold and absolutely worth writing down.
I recently had a situation where like I said, I’m kind of changing seasons in my life and in our family’s life over here and I just really wasn’t sure about it. And so what I finally did was, I realized that while I’ve prayed about this, I haven’t really prayed intentionally. And I haven’t been quiet and still and really listened. It’s just been kind of desperation like I don’t really want to do this thing, I’m not sure if we’re supposed to do this thing…that was kind of my prayer. And so, I was in my car one day and I parked down by the river, and I took 15 minutes and I just sat in prayer and really just shared my whole heart with God. I shared all my fears, my concerns, my anxiety around it, my possible excitement around it, the pros, the cons, the good, the bad, the ugly, all the areas where I felt unqualified. And I just told God, “I really feel like this is the next step for our family. But I feel afraid and God, I know that fear is not from you. Would you just open my eyes and would you soften my heart and Lord, would you partner with me in this? Is this what we’re supposed to be doing? God, would you go above and beyond? Not only would you participate, but would you actually put joy in my heart and passion in my heart around this thing if it’s what we’re supposed to do?”
And you know, sometimes God answers our prayers right away. And sometimes we feel like we’re just hanging for awhile and we don’t know the answer. But in this situation, I kid you not, 36 hours later, God had softened and changed my heart in such a beautiful way. My mom was asking me about this next season of our family’s life, and I began to just gush to her all the things I was excited about and all the ways I felt like God was in it. And it was in that moment I realized, oh my goodness, God has absolutely answered this prayer. He has gone above and beyond and in 36 hours He did what I asked. He filled my heart to overflow and put joy and passion in my heart. And as I reflect back on that, it’s like I finally took the time to be still, to be quiet, to create that space, to hear Him and to pray to ask Him to go above and beyond and oh my gosh, won’t He do it? He showed up in such a beautiful way and very clearly showed me that yes, this is the next step for my family.
So again, there’s just so much wisdom in asking those questions as we’re taking steps forward in life. And the blessing is always on the other side of obedience.
Taking that One Next Step
When it comes to walking all of this out with boldness and courage, Brittany shares that you don’t actually have to wait until you’re bold and courageous to get started.
She shares that another myth about God’s will is that we have to know where we’re going. So often in our lives, we’re trying to figure out what God wants us to do with steps 1, 2, 3, and so on. But He doesn’t always give us the whole big plan before we get started. Otherwise, we would be completely overwhelmed. Instead, He starts very small and so often, Brittany has found that we don’t know what the plan is, or we don’t know where He’s leading us. We don’t know where we’re going until we are already walking. And I think that’s so gracious of Him that He doesn’t throw us in with this huge thing and expect us to just go figure it out on day one. He asks us to start small. So sometimes, it’s not a matter of having it all figured out, it’s just doing this small thing and it may not feel like it even matters. Like does it matter if I’m kind to my children today? Does it matter if I start this little blog? Does it matter if I send this email about an opportunity? You know, do any of these things matter? But I would encourage you to start with the small thing, start with what you know.
Once you get into what you know you’re supposed to do, just break it down and say, you know, I don’t need to worry about all of it right now. God is just asking me to partner with Him through it. He’s asking me to take the first step. And we don’t have to wait until we’re not afraid and we don’t have to wait until we feel bold. Feelings are important in that they’re an indicator. But feelings are not always the truth. You can feel afraid when you don’t need to. You can feel angry when you don’t need to. Feelings are more of a sign or a symptom of something. They’re not the whole truth. Just because we feel something scary doesn’t mean it actually is. Just take the first step and God will come through for you and then you’ll take the next one and the next one.
You can ask God to put the passion in your heart. You can ask God for the wisdom and the courage. You can ask God to help you. If you don’t have what you feel that you need, ask God. He doesn’t give us these calls so that we can be miserable with our lives. He invites us to these things that are so exciting and He’s going to give us everything we need. He’s going to walk with you, He’s going to empower you every step of the way. So whatever it is you feel like you don’t have, or you don’t have enough of, or if you have a need in some area, you can ask God. He has everything and He will give you whatever it is you need to go into whatever He has called you to.
I know you’ve heard me say, “You don’t have to have it all figured out to move forward, just take that one next step.” And it can be a small step. Just keep stepping forward. You know, the Bible says that God did not give us a spirit of fear, but that He gives us a spirit of love, courage, and, self-control. And I really lean into that. I have Joshua 1:9 up on the walls in each of my boys’ bedrooms and God says, “Do not be discouraged. Do not be afraid, but have courage. I am with you.”
And in fact, the Bible says many, many times to not be discouraged, to not be afraid but to have courage and that He won’t leave us, but He’ll be with us every step of the way. And I think just leaning into that truth and asking the Lord to partner with you and help you to feel His presence and help you to to rely not on your own strength but on His strength. The Bible says that in our weakness, God is strong and just knowing those truths, I think it really comes back to knowing the Word and trusting in the Word and leaning into and living out the Word. And I think that that is just a beautiful way that we can live it with a lot with boldness and courage. But I love what Brittany shared that we don’t necessarily have to be bold and courageous right out of the gate. All we have to do is be obedient and take the one next step that God is asking us to do, that God is calling us forward into and He will fill us with His Spirit, His strength, His courage, His goodness.
Brittany’s new book, Follow God’s Will: Biblical Strategies for Everyday Life” is available now and dives into everything we’ve talked about today and more. It is meant to help Christian women figure out what God wants you to do, whether that is in the big things or the small things and so much more. Be sure to check it out on Amazon or anywhere that books are sold!
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