How does God guide us?
Introduction
Last year my wife and I went on holiday to Lebanon. I know it doesn’t sound like your typical holiday destination, but it was fantastic – partly because we have relatives there. We were based at Tyre in the South, but wanted to see the country a bit.
Public transport in Lebanon is interesting, mainly privately owned mini-buses and taxis. The minibuses run regular routes, stopping and picking up anyone who flags them down on the way.
One place we really wanted to visit was Baalbek – a huge historic site with amazingly preserved Roman temples which also happened to be Hez-Bola HQ. We got a mini-bus from Tyre to Beirut. In Tyre we were lead by the hand several hundred yards to another bus which we were put on – our ‘guide’ then explained to the driver where we were heading – and that was it! On the way back it was the same. The problem was – all the communication was done in Arabic – and we don’t speak any Arabic.
When we got back people asked us whether we felt in danger – they could have taken you anywhere. Our response was no. at no point did we really feel at risk - the people were lovely and very friendly to us wherever we went. We trusted them.
When we come to thinking about God leading and guiding us – the key question is can we, and do we trust him?
Well, the Bible gives us good reason to trust him.
God promises to guide us. In Psalm 32:8 we read “I will instruct you and teach you in the way you should go. I will counsel you and watch over you”
And when he guides us his guidance is always good and for our best. (see Romans 8:28, 12:2) God’s will is good and he works for the good of those who love him.
One of the most helpful verses – and encouraging as we consider God’s guidance is Proverbs 3:5-6. If we
- Trust in God
- Acknowledge him
- Don’t “lean on” our own understanding
then he will direct us
But how does God guide us?
Commanding Scripture
The first, and most important way that God leads us is through his written word, the Bible.
Look at 2 Timothy 3:16 – “All scripture is God breathed and is useful for teaching, rebuking, correcting and training in righteousness, so that the man of God may be thoroughly equipped for every good work.”
It is clear isn’t it. The Bible has been given so that we may be thoroughly equipped for every good work.” What does that leave out? Nothing.
As we read the Bible with open minds, God instructs us how life is best lived – for us and other people. We ignore it at our peril.
But the Bible doesn’t always feel like it fulfils it’s purpose does it? There are times when we come to the Bible with questions and the question doesn’t seem to be answered.
This could be for a number of reasons.
- We haven’t looked hard enough! Sometimes discovering what the Bible says is hard work – and requires time and attention and serious digging. A bit like panning for gold!
- We are asking the wrong question. Sometimes the Bible doesn’t answer our questions because we are asking the wrong questions. For example, when thinking about who to marry, the Bible won’t tell me whether I should marry a particular girl I like, but it does tell me the criteria I should use. Is she female (!), a close relative, a Christian? The rest God doesn’t really mind and leaves the decision with me. Sometimes the Bible doesn’t answer the question I am asking because I should be asking a different question!
- We can’t hear what it is really saying – I am not really open-minded enough to hear the real, truthful answer. This is more common than we think!
So, the Bible has general instructions for life and occasionally specifics too.
There are times when God brings to light particular verses or passages that perhaps we hadn’t heard or read before, perhaps through other people, or our own reading and studying of the Bible. We like to try to make this happen. We close our eyes, pray and ask God to speak and then open on a random page. We would never expect any other book to make sense like that, so why the Bible? We must work hard to understand what the original writers meant and as we do that, God will reveal his truth, to us, today in our context.
I remember when my now wife and I got engaged I was excited but very nervous – was I going to be able to do this, and do it right? I was taking on a commitment unlike any other I had done before. Was I up to the task? Over the next few days lots of different people gave us the same verses – that we read earlier from Proverbs 3:5-6. It was a real encouragement to me.
I cannot emphasis highly enough the importance of the Bible in the way God guides us. The Bible is the only way God promises to guide us. He can and does lead us in other ways as we will see because he loves us and is gracious to us. But we mustn’t expect him too, and build our lives around these other ways when the only way he has promised to guide us is staring us in the face – the Bible. We must take this seriously!
Compelling Spirit
With this first, most important point in the forefront of our minds, we also see that he guides us by his Spirit.
Paul and his companions are on a journey that they had no doubt planned out.
“When they came to the border of Mysia, they tried to enter Bithynia, but the Spirit of Jesus would not allow them to. So they passed by Mysia and went down to Troas. During the night Paul had a vision of a man of Macedonia standing and begging him, “come over to Macedonia and help us.” After Paul had seen the vision, we got ready at once to leave for Macedonia, concluding that God had called us to preach the gospel to them.” Acts 16:7-10
In these verses we see the Spirit of God working clearly guiding Paul and his companions.
The Spirit stopped them from going to Bithynia. But notice – we are not told how. We don’t know how he did it.
People sometimes experience God’s spirit giving a strong impression of something or a feeling about something. Sometimes He gives a clear thought, or a strong desire to do something. On unusual occasions in the Bible God uses dreams visions, as he does in the Macedonian Man. God can, and does do these things today – and we must be thankful for them. But it is important to notice Paul’s response. They ended up “concluding that God had called us to preach the gospel to them.”
Whatever happens with any of these we must give these things the right amount of authority. Not too little – the Bible speaks of them, and God speaks through them. We must listen hard to them, try and conclude what God might be saying whilst recognising their place. But we must not give them too much authority. Paul doesn’t speak in the emphatic way (in Acts 16) he does about the Bible (2 Timothy 3). He “concluded”.
When God’s Spirit speaks to us it is open to testing.
1 John 4:1 makes this very clear. “Dear friends, do not believe every spirit, but test the spirits to see whether they are from God.”
How do we test? Well, the first test is this – can we, in the same breath, believe and acknowledge the word of the spirit whilst still acknowledging who Jesus is and believing the Bible? And after that, it is important to ask – is it loving, does it build other people up and lead to peace?
Common sense
The third way God guides us is through our Common sense. This is not rocket science. Ralph Emerson, the U.S poet once said – “Common Sense is genius dressed in its working clothes.”
The New Testament writers always encourage us to think, and engage our brains. God has designed us to think, and to think hard. But so often we want to take the easy option. I can think back on incidences in my own life where I was asking God for guidance – to lead me and all the time I already knew what I needed to do. I just didn’t want to do it.
Some people say that our logic and common sense are not “spiritual”. This, put simply is rubbish!
Back in the verses in Proverbs - “In all your ways acknowledge him.” Well, one of my “ways” is thinking! Even in thinking, acknowledge him - and give thanks for being able to think!
There was a man who got caught in a torrential flood. The waters rose, so high that he ended up on the roof of his house, surrounded by water. Being a religious man he decided to pray hard and ask God to rescue him from this terrible disaster. After 20 minutes a rescue boat arrived and offered him a lift. He raised his head from his hands, and then waved them away mumbling something about God rescuing him. Mean while, the waters rose! Another 30 minutes later a Helicopter arrived lowered down a rope and encouraged him to grab hold. Whilst struggling to find a footing with his feet on the roof of his house, now hidden under 5 feet of water, he waved them away too, saying that God was going to rescue him. Meanwhile, the waters rose! 30 minutes later, the man, tired from his struggled lost the roof of his house altogether, floated away and drowned. In heaven he confronted God and asked him “why didn’t you rescue me – I prayed and prayed?”
God’s response - “Well I sent a speedboat and a helicopter – what more do you want?
John Stott once wrote “God’s promises of guidance were not given to save us the problem of thinking.”
We think of common sense as not spiritual because it doesn’t appear to come from God – it is not imminent. It is – from God, he has just hard wired the mechanism to learn it in us from birth!
The council of others
The fourth place we might find guidance is from the counsel of others. What do I mean by that? Simple - listening to other peoples opinions. The book of proverbs is big on this! Here are a few verses.
- Proverbs 12:15 ‘…the wise listen to advice’
- Proverbs 15:22 ‘Plans fail for lack of counsel, but with many advisers they succeed’
- Proverbs 20:18 ‘Make plans by seeking advice’
But remember, even when we take advice from others, we are responsible for the outcome – not them. This raises a question. Who should we consult?
I have a number of people who I respect and would turn to for advice and wisdom. One guy in particular who is a mature Christian, level headed, and will tell me what I need to hear rather than what I want to hear. It is important that we find people like that. Who fills that role in your life?
Circumstances
The fifth place we find guidance from God is in our circumstances.
We started with that verse in Proverbs –
“Trust in the Lord with all your heart, Lean not on your own understanding, In all your ways acknowledge him, And he will direct your paths!”
Notice again the 3 commands and a promise.
In my experience, it is much easier to see God’s leading as I look back. Sometimes God opens doors and sometimes he closes them. I look back now at what I learnt, who I met, the opportunities that I have had because I have not had my way and I am thankful.
Sometimes we read into our circumstances too much. Because it is raining and I overslept God doesn’t want me to go and see the difficult friends who actually really need me. This is dangerous thinking, and actually me shirking my responsibilities. Sometimes we need to persevere despite the circumstances.
Conclusion
But lastly – we all make mistakes when we are trying to do the right thing and hear what God wants us to do. It is at times like that we are thankful for his forgiveness. We mustn’t let the fear of doing the wrong thing paralyse us from doing anything.
If we want to be directed by God, we need to be moving and trying to follow him.
When I was a child, I used to love sitting in the drivers seat playing with the steering wheel when the car was stationary. My Father would never have let me do that if the car was actually moving. The consequences would have been catastrophic as my tugging on the steering wheel would actually have changed the direction of the car.
If we are expecting God to be in the driving seat in our life, and to guide us, we need to take our responsibility to try and follow him and do what we know he has asked us to do seriously. There is no point God tugging on the steering wheel if we are not going anywhere. We need to trust him to direct us as we listen to the Bible, seek to discern what the Spirit is saying to us, use our common sense and listen to others advice.
So, are you trusting him for your future – both in this life – and for eternity?
This talk is based on the outline in the Alpha manual. For more information visit Alpha.org