How do you really know when God is guiding you?

God’s guidance ALWAYS includes a sense of peace and never a sense of limitation or fear. In fact, we should NEVER let fear motivate us even if society is saying that we need to.

Truth and Love can be and are the real motivating powers in man.¹

Divine guidance is speaking to you and motivating you to act and think rightly — the highest, spiritual way — in every situation.

Know, then, that you possess sovereign power to think and act rightly, and that nothing can dispossess you of this heritage . . .²

Sometimes we may feel we lack something —  a career, a home, happiness, a family — but thinking that is focused on what is lacking is never from God.
Don’t compare! It may be tempting to look around and see what others have, but we can rejoice for them — rejoice in all the diverse ways that God is expressed in your colleagues and friends. Comparison will never let us feel abundance.
God is infinite so Her qualities are magnified in infinite ways. God is expressed in unique ways in each of us. Comparing will limit our ability to hear the “gentle whisper” of God telling us what is right and needed for you.³

I have found 3 helpful resources in thinking about listening, motivation and guidance.

Guided by God
How can I learn to trust God more and hear His voice more clearly?
A Voice Within (available in the January 18 & 25 Christian Science Sentinel at your local Christian Science Reading Room; not online yet).
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^{1Mary Baker Eddy, Science and Health with Key to the Scriptures, p. 490}

^{2Mary Baker Eddy, Pulpit and Press, p. 3}

^{3Kings 19:12 New Living Translation}