‘He guides the humble in what is right.’ Psalm 25:9 NIV
How can you learn to be guided by the Lord? In three different ways: (1) Through prayer. Thomas Kelly wrote: ‘There’s a way of ordering our mental life on more than one level at once. On one level we may be thinking, discussing, seeing… but… at a profound level, we may also be in prayer… and have a gentle receptiveness to divine breathings.’ (2) Through obedience. What use is God’s guidance if you’re not willing to follow it? And what about the guidance you’ve already received through the Scriptures but haven’t acted on? Frank Laubach, whose life was an experiment in listening to God, wrote: ‘I never lived… until I reached the place where I wholly… resolved and then re-resolved, that I’d find God’s will, and that I would do that will though every fibre in me said no, and that I would win the battle in my thoughts. It was as though some deep artesian well had been struck in my soul… Money, praise, poverty, opposition—these made no difference, for they will all alike be forgotten in a thousand years, but this spirit which comes to a mind set upon continuous surrender, this spirit is timeless life.’ (3) Through faith. Have the words, ‘I believe the Lord told me’, been abused? Yes, they have! Sometimes religious leaders use them as a ploy to get what they want. But don’t throw out the baby with the bathwater! The truth is, you won’t grow spiritually if you close yourself off from the guidance of the Holy Spirit. You must believe—mind-blowing as it sounds—that God really can and does speak to us.
SoulFood: Num 30:1–32:24, Luke 9:18–33, Ps 125, Prov 4:3–4
The Word for Today is authored by Bob and Debby Gass and published under licence from UCB International Copyright 2024
