> Well, I am muchly convicted of the fact that teaching high school is what I'm here for. No, I cannot clearly explain how I came to be so sure of this.

I totally don't get this. I know a lot of Christians who, to varying degrees, believe that God has a particular desire about what profession we choose, what school we go to, whom we marry, and so forth. I don't understand how a Bible-believing Christian comes to this conclusion. It is true that God has a purpose and a plan for our lives, but the Bible *tells* us what this will is. It's things like "In everything give thanks, for this is the will of God concerning you." It's to love (in the active sense) God and our fellow human beings and so forth.

I think when we hear that God has a "plan" for our lives, we superimpose our idea of a life plan over God's and assume this plan must entail marriage, career, place of residence, and so forth. But except in special instances, the biblical record is of God basically leaving these sorts of decisions up to us. True, God exhorts us to make use of the gifts he has given us, and also to pray about such matters, but I don't think either of these things has a natural consequence of locking us into specific courses. God may well have given you the gift of teaching, but this does not necessarily mean that you must use that gift in teaching high school, or even in a profession that regularly involves teaching. God may well -- and in all likelihood will -- make use of you in high school teaching position, but God will most assuredly be able to use you to do his work in another place and capacity as well.

As much as I trust my spiritual sense of the Holy Spirit's guidance as a means to doublecheck my course in applying biblical guidelines to my life, I'm inclined to distrust it when it comes to divining God's will for matters that aren't backed Scripturally. Our spiritual senses are fallible, and there are spiritual beings other than God that might be inclined to lead us that we may or may not be able to detect. How, lacking a strong biblical precedent for God having a specific desire for our every action -- or even all of the actions that appear "large" from a human perspective -- can we even trust that God does for us, let alone be able to determine spiritually exact what that is?