In this free little book, I give advice about how to decide what to do:

Naselli, Andrew David. God’s Will and Making Decisions. Field Guides. Kingsburg, CA: The Mentoring Project, 2025.

• Free PDF
• Free Spanish PDF
• Free audiobook (at the top of this page)

After disagreeing with what I call “the subjective view” of finding God’s will, I propose four diagnostic questions as a set of principles to help you decide what to do:

1. Holy Desire: What do you want to do?
2. Open Door: What opportunities are open or closed?
3. Wise Counsel: What do wise people who know you well and know the situation well advise you to do?
4. Biblical Wisdom: What do you think you should do based on Bible-saturated wisdom?

Then I give five closing exhortations:

1. Don’t be anxious. Trust God.
2. Don’t be sulky. Be holy and happy.
3. Don’t be inflexible. Be willing to adjust your plans.
4. Don’t overthink past decisions. Strain forward to what lies ahead.
5. Don’t be cowardly. Be courageous.

Updates: I gave a lecture on the topic with Q&A on February 2, 2025 (68 min.):

In my sermon “How to Discern if a Man Should be a Pastor” on 1 Timothy 3:1 (13 July 2025), I apply the principles in my little book:

Related: “God’s Will and Decision-Making” (August 15, 2012)

New article:

Naselli, Andrew David. “Are You a Gentle Man? Must We Be Weak to Be Gentle?” American Reformer, August 7, 2023.

This article is an overflow from when I prepared this talk: “The Pastor and His Family: Managing Your Household Well—How a Faithful Father Shepherds His Wife and Children” (a breakout session for Serious Joy: The 35th Bethlehem Conference for Pastors in St. Paul, MN, January 30, 2023).

I condensed the gist of that talk into a short article: “What Does It Mean for a Man to Manage His Household Well?” (Christ Over All, May 2, 2023).

In the Panel Discussion (with Jonathon Woodyard and Jason Wredberg) that followed my talk, I elaborated on gentleness—particularly whether we should always be gentle or whether there may be times when it would be sinful to be gentle (see 9:58 to 14:30 in the panel).

My article on gentleness updates my research:

• I start with a basic word study on gentleness.
• I define gentleness as the virtue of humbly and wisely showing tender kindness to someone.
• I unpack that definition and argue that wisdom is necessary to be gentle because sometimes it is sinful to be gentle.
• I conclude that men should be both strong and gentle—tough and tender, authoritative and compassionate, brick and velvet.

Update: “What Does It Mean to Be Gentle? Qualifications for a Pastor” (a sermon I preached on August 3, 2025):

Here are 12 books I recently endorsed (nine for 2020, three for 2021):

1. Albuquerque, Roque N. Presupposition and [E]Motion: The Upgraded Function and the Semantics of the Participle in the New Testament. New York: Lang, 2020. “Dr. Albuquerque skillfully analyzes what the authors of the Greek New Testament intend to communicate when they begin a sentence with an adverbial participle before the main clause.”
2. Beale, G. K., and Benjamin L. Gladd. The Story Retold: A Biblical-Theological Introduction to the New Testament. Downers Grove, IL: InterVarsity Press, 2020. ”Beale and Gladd concisely survey each book of the New Testament through a biblical-theological lens. I plan to require this book for my seminary course that focuses on the theological message of each New Testament book.“
3. Crowe, Brandon D. Every Day Matters: A Biblical Approach to Productivity. Bellingham, WA: Lexham, 2020. “Brandon Crowe distills the best secular books on productivity but with a distinctively Christian approach. What drives his common-sense advice is for us to glorify God.”
4. Grudem, Wayne. Systematic Theology: An Introduction to Biblical Doctrine. 2nd ed. Grand Rapids: Zondervan, 2020. ”Grudem’s Systematic Theology is well organized, easy to understand, usually persuasive, and devotional. Grudem does not merely inform you; he stirs your affections to love and worship the triune God. Grudem is not attempting to write a cutting-edge contemporary theology that plays theological Ping-Pong with trendy non-evangelical theologians. Nor is he attempting to write a historical theology that exhaustively explains what significant Bible interpreters and theologians have believed. Rather, he is serving the church by helping Christians who are not experts in theology better understand what the whole Bible says about God, God’s word, man, Christ, the Holy Spirit, angels and demons, salvation, the church, and the end times.”
5. Harris, Murray J. Navigating Tough Texts: A Guide to Problem Passages in the New Testament. Bellingham, WA: Lexham, 2020. “Murray Harris is a veteran New Testament scholar who knows the Greek of the New Testament better than most English-speaking people today know English. In this book he shares 66 short devotional interpretations of challenging passages in the New Testament.”
6. Leeman, Jonathan. One Assembly: Rethinking the Multisite and Multiservice Church Models. 9Marks. Wheaton, IL: Crossway, 2020. “Evangelical churches that are multisite and/or multiservice are like that for good-intentioned pragmatic reasons. Jonathan Leeman challenges us to think exegetically and theologically about a popular practice that may not be as strategic as so many assume.”
7. Morgan, Christopher W., with Robert A. Peterson. Christian Theology: The Biblical Story and Our Faith. Nashville: Broadman & Holman, 2020. ‘‘Chris Morgan’s systematic theology is concise, easy to understand, and edifying. He models how to do theology by rooting his conclusions in exegesis and biblical theology while considering historical theology and culminating in practical theology.”
8. Verrett, Brian A. The Serpent in Samuel: A Messianic Motif. Eugene, OR: Resource, 2020. “Brian Verrett’s work on the serpent is first-class. He skillfully combines rigorous exegesis with whole-Bible biblical theology.”
9. Winston, Richard Wellons. Misunderstanding, Nationalism, or Legalism: Identifying Israel’s Chief Error with Reference to the Law. Eugene, OR: Wipf & Stock, 2020. ”Winston demonstrates that the main idea of Romans 9:30–10:13 is not that Israelites are guilty for zealously maintaining their nationalistic boundary markers—circumcision, Sabbath, and food laws. Rather, Paul argues that many Israelites failed to believe in Jesus and foolishly attempted the impossible—to earn righteousness based on the law.”
10. Crabtree, Sam. Practicing Thankfulness: Cultivating a Grateful Heart in All Circumstances. Wheaton, IL: Crossway, 2021. “I thank God for Sam Crabtree. He is a wise and jovial brother who practices what he preaches in this book: he gives thanks in all circumstances. (Don’t miss the last chapter—a creative list of one hundred practical ways to be thankful.)”
11. Piper, John. Providence. Wheaton, IL: Crossway, 2021. “John Piper helps us see and savor God’s purposeful sovereignty by inductively demonstrating what the whole Bible teaches about its ultimate goal, its nature, and its extent.”
12. Wellum, Stephen J. The Person of Christ: An Introduction. Short Studies in Systematic Theology. Wheaton, IL: Crossway, 2021. “Christians affirm seemingly contradictory claims about Jesus: self-existent and depending on food and water; all-powerful and getting tired and sleeping; all-knowing and growing in knowledge; everywhere present and localized; eternal and born from a mother’s womb; unable to sin and tempted as we are; immortal and dying; in short—God and man. How can that be? And why is that so glorious? I require my seminary students to read Steve Wellum’s 500-page God the Son Incarnate: The Doctrine of Christ because Wellum masterfully answers such questions by integrating exegesis, biblical theology, historical theology, and systematic theology. This book is shorter, more accessible, and less intimidating—an ideal entry point for someone who wants to better understand who Christ is.”