Dear Friend,

Welcome to Ministry Excellence, your guide to thriving in your calling and maximizing your impact in the Kingdom of God.

In this issue:

5 signs someone is NOT telling you God's will

How can you tell when someone's advice is truly God’s will? Especially when you feel disturbed by what they tell you -- or the way they say it? Their good intentions don’t automatically make a message divine.

Moments like that can feel intimidating. You may wonder whether you’re supposed to obey, question it, or quietly walk away. After all, no faithful Christian wants to ignore God’s will. But the truth is, people sometimes claim to speak for God when they’re really speaking from their own opinions, emotions, or fears.

Here are five trustworthy signs that someone is NOT telling you God's will:

1. It goes against scripture. That's the easiest sign to recognize if you regularly listen to the scriptures at Mass, engage in Bible studies, and read scripture reflections.

2. It steals your peace. If a human spirit or a demonic spirit is behind the message being told to you, ignore it. When God speaks, the words and tone are full of gentleness and love and compassion. The invitation to change is inspiring, not condemning.

3. It rejects you. When you try to speak to the person who's advising you, as you describe what is in your heart about the thing being told to you, that person interrupts you and has a comeback before you even finish.

4. It makes you feel bad about yourself. It often happens that the other person feels insecure or jealous of you or fearful about the topic at hand. In order to not feel bad about themselves, they project onto you what is really going on inside of them.

5. It keeps you from praying. Often a good way to prevent an argument or to stop a discussion that is going in the wrong direction is to gently say that you thank the other person for their interest in you and you will take it all to prayer. If the message is demonically inspired, that person will not accept your desire to pray. They will try to keep the argument going instead of letting you go off to be alone with the Lord.

TAKEAWAY: 

God does speak through other people at times, but He never bypasses the relationship He has with you. The Lord invites you to bring every message, every piece of advice, and every difficult conversation to Him in prayer. When something truly comes from God, it will stand up to the light of Scripture, it will deepen your peace, and it will reinforce what the Holy Spirit has already been telling you.

By paying attention to these five signs and entrusting the situation to the Holy Spirit -- with forgiveness for the person who disturbed your peace -- you can move forward confidently in doing God’s will.

That’s why I wrote the book: Knowing God's Will and Doing It Well. Get your copy of this discernment workbook before anyone has a chance to disturb your spirit again. Visit Amazon @ https://a.co/d/0bbQ3TXv.

Maybe you know someone else who could use this help. Please recommend this workbook to your friends, family, social media followers, young adults at church, your parish faith formation director, and young men who would make awesome priests. Buy the book for them as a gift of faith, or give them this link: 

https://gnm.org/terry-modica-author/knowing-gods-will-and-doing-it-well.

What's next?

In the next issue of this newsletter, we'll cover: Why is it so hard to know God's will?

P.S. If you purchase this book, please leave a review on Amazon: This will trigger Amazon's algorithms to suggest this book to more people.

AS A BONUS: For readers of this book, I'm making myself available for one-on-one coaching. The cost is $75/hour; the first half hour is free.

I also give workshops on God’s Plan for Your Life (sometimes called “The Master Needs You”) -- at parishes and conferences and for young adults. For overseas locations and budget problems, we can do it by Zoom. Let me know if this interests you.

Blessings of Peace and Grace
as we serve Christ together,
Terry Modica

Spiritual Coach, Author, Speaker,
Executive Director
Good News Ministries
GNM.org