Guidance
Guidance is a problem for christians not because we doubt that there is divine guidance, but that we are afraid we will not pick up on the guidance when it is given. Really, we just misunderstand what guidance is. This topic of guidance was what I read on tonight from J.I. Packer’s Knowing God. It’s been pretty cool that the past few weeks bible verses i’ve been memorizing and things i’ve been thinking about have been brought up in fellowship, church and devotional readings. Lately i’ve particularly been asking for guidance. Wondering how to gain God’s wisdom, to know His will, to know when I know…
“Their basic mistake is to think of guidance as essentially inward prompting by the Holy Spirit, apart from the written Word.” Because of testimonies sermons and bible stories we’ve come to believe that there is supposed to be a divine calling through the Holy Spirit that tells u what choice to make. This does happen but is not the crux of God’s guidance.
Six Common Pitfalls
1) Unwillingness to think - it is a false piety that leads us to believe that God will just direct us to do all things right. We must consider for ourselves. “O that they were wise… that they would consider…” (Deut 32:29 KJV)
2) Unwillingness to think ahead – as much a divine rule of life as a worldly one. “O that they were wise… that they would consider their latter end.”
3) Unwillingness to take advice – “The way of a fool seems right to hin, but a wise man listens to advice” (Prov 12:15). God speaks through others in our lives as well. With all the thinking we do it is still bounded and we need others outside the box…
4) Unwillingness to suspect oneself - we dislike being realistic with ourselves. ” ‘Feelings’ with an ego-boosting, or escapist, or self-indulging, or self-aggrandising base, must be detected and discredited, not mistaken for guidance.” … “We need to ask ourselves why we ‘feel’ a particular course to be right.”
The joy and general sense of well-being that often (but not always) goes with being ‘in love’ can easily silence conscience and inhibit critical thinking. How often people say that they ‘feel led’ to get married (and probably they will say ‘the Lord has so clearly guided’), when all they are really describing is a particularly novel state of endocrine balance which makes them feel extremely sanguine and happy.(O. R. Barclay, Guidance)
5) Unwillingness to discount personal magnetism – “Test everything. Hold on to the good” (I THess 5:21) Don’t look up to fellow Christians that we see as more wise as prophets or angels with absolutely correct advice. “Outstanding people are not, indeed, necessarily wrong, but they are not necessarily right, either!”
6) Unwillingness to wait – everything in God’s time.
I realize that this has gotten quite long… the key things i got were that we are to look to the Word always, that comes first. For vocational choices – that is choices between good and good, not explicitly covered in the Bible like who to marry, what career path to take etc – note the 6 common mistakes above and that guidance is not mere spiritual inward prompting.
quotes and paraphrases from the chapter Thou Our Guide in Knowing God
this post turned out to be quite long indeed… i was initially thinking a paragraph or two… but all is well
April 12th, 2005 at 6:14 pm
good post ^^ one of my friends linked to you so i found you thru that ^^ .. i don’t think i actually know you ;p