I often get emails or comments at InsideWork asking for very specific advice regarding work or business situations. Many times they involve ethical or moral dilemmas. Other times they are just complex situations in search of a clear response. Although the answers to some questions seem clear to me, I am becoming less and less comfortable giving precise answers to some of these questions. Could I? Perhaps. But what is making me uncomfortable is that I sense that many who ask the questions are looking for a formula, a clear rationale for a decision that makes their life unambiguous, clear, and “right.” After all, we admire people who are clear and decisive. Shouldn’t our faith make us clear and decisive?

But my own experience is that life is unclear. Some of the “clearest” decisions I’ve made had unintended consequences that took me years to unravel. In other cases, the most muddled, difficult and uncertain decisions have led to opportunity and growth I couldn’t have imagined.

The trouble is that most of these formulas leave out the most fundamental thing — the need to trust God. We end up trusting the formula rather than God.

The problem with so much of the “faith” in our society is that it is not about faith, but about formulas. And these formulas are offered up for everything — how to find God’s will, how to find the right person to marry, how to raise your children, how to have a Christ-centered business. The trouble is that most of these formulas leave out the most fundamental thing — the need to trust God. We end up trusting the formula rather than God.

So when I get a question about whether a person should stay or leave a company because of something that he feels is wrong, I first ask myself whether that person has been seeking and trusting God day-by-day to work through the challenge. A complex and difficult challenge may not yield to a simple “stay/leave” answer. The end may not be that he stays and suffers, but that he stays and acts to transform the company and those around him. (Can you imagine William Wilberforce thinking, “These guys in Parliament are so wrong when it comes to slavery. I can’t be a part of an institution that supports this. Therefore, I’m leaving.) And he may be transformed in the process as well.

The heart of being a “Christian in business” or a “faith-centered” business is not adhering to a litmus test of principles and standards. (And I’m not saying that principles and standards are wrong.) It’s working and leading starting with a total dependence on God in all matters big and small, every moment, every day.

Yesterday, this was reinforced powerfully in my reading of I Samuel 23 in which David, falsely accused, and on the run for his life, three times demonstrates his trust in God.

David asked God about strategic issues. In verse 2, he inquires of God whether to carry out an attack on the enemy or not. After getting that answer, he comes back to his men who are in a state of fear (verse 4). So he goes back to inquire of God again. In this he is going to God to deal with leadership and people issues. Then in verse 10, when he is in danger of being surrounded and trapped by the enemy, he inquires of God about whether to fight or withdraw. In this he trusts God for tactical issues.

Was David principled? Certainly. But his trust was in God, not formulas or rules.

In your daily business and work-life are you trusting God in EVERYTHING, whether it is strategic, tactical, or personnel-related? If you are, then you’re making progress toward a faith-centered work-life and business.