Making Decisions - Moving Ahead

"What does God want me to do in this situation?"
"Which alternative should I choose?"
"How do I know whether it would be better to do A or B?"

When facing difficult decisions - stay or go, this job or that job, stand and fight or cut your losses and run - it seems to me that the temptation is to think that God has the one right answer already set for us. We plead to know God's will as if it were the answer to a trivial pursuit card that God is holding in his hand. We pray for just a peek at that magic card that tells us what to do.
And God can seem like a pretty smug opponent we're up against. God is keeping the answer a secret from us and making us guess! And if we are faithful, we'll guess right? Or if we guess right, that's proof that we are faithful? Or if we pray hard enough, God will give us a fat juicy clue?
Maybe God isn't holding all the cards. Maybe God is just holding us.

My Lord God, I have no idea where I am going. I do not see the road ahead of me. I cannot know for certain where it will end. Nor do I really know myself, and the fact that I think that I am following your will does not mean that I am actually doing so. But I believe that the desire to please you does in fact please you. And I hope that I have that desire in all that I am doing. I hope that I will never do anything apart from that desire. And I know that if I do this you will lead me by the right road though I may know nothing about it. Therefore I will trust you always though I may seem to be lost and in the shadow of death. I will not fear, for you are ever with me, and you will never leave me to face my perils alone.

Thomas Merton
—Thoughts in Solitude