The God Who Will Guide You

"I will instruct thee and teach thee in the way which thou shalt go."

Here the Lord is the speaker, and gives the psalmist an answer to his prayer. Our Saviour is our instructor. The Lord himself deigns to teach his children to walk in the way of integrity, his holy word and the monitions of the Holy Spirit are the directors of the believer's daily conversation. We are not pardoned that we may henceforth live after our own lusts, but that we may be educated in holiness and trained for perfection. A heavenly training is one of the covenant blessings which adoption seals to us:

"All thy children shall be taught by the Lord."

Practical teaching is the very best of instruction, and they are thrice happy who, although they never sat at the feet of Gamaliel, and are ignorant of Aristotle, and the ethics of the schools, have nevertheless learned to follow the Lamb whithersoever he goeth.

"I will guide thee with mine eye." 

As servants take their cue from the master's eye, and a nod or a wink is all that they require, so should we obey the slightest hints of our Master, not needing thunderbolts to startle our incorrigible sluggishness, but being controlled by whispers and love touches. The Lord is the great overseer, whose eye in providence overlooks everything. It is well for us to be the sheep of his pasture, following the guidance of his wisdom.

From The Treasury Of David by Charles Haddon Spurgeon, exposition of Psalm 32:8. Image by Fraser Mummery on Flickr under Creative Commons License, without alteration.

Follow Where Jesus Leads You

If you consult your own strength, it is clear that you cannot win the life-battle. What is your strength but perfect weakness? If you look to your own wisdom, it is evident that you cannot guide your own way across the pathless desert of life. What is your wisdom but the essence of folly? Come back, then, in childlike confidence to God, and go no more from him. Come to the very spot where your spiritual life commenced and find strength, wisdom, rest, and all in the living God. Let this verse smile on you and beckon you to God, “He will be very gracious unto thee at the voice of thy cry; when he shall hear it, he will answer thee.” No trial shall happen to you but such as is common to man, and when the temptation comes the way of escape shall come with it. The burden shall always find your back strengthened to bear it, or else if your back be weak the burden shall not be laid upon you.

The whole of your future history, though unknown to yourself, is spread out like a map before the eye of your great leader and guide. Follow where Jesus leads you, and know that he cannot forsake you; he will make you to lie down in green pastures, and his goodness and his mercy will follow you all your days. Be careful for nothing, be prayerful for everything. Commit thy way unto the Lord, trust thou also in him and he shall bring it to pass; and he shall bring forth thy judgment as the light and thy righteousness as the noonday. Go to his mercy-seat in every time of trial, for he will be very gracious to thee. Pour out thy heart before him and thou shalt have an answer of peace from the God of thy salvation.

From a sermon by Charles Haddon Spurgeon entitled "Encouragement To Trust And Pray," delivered June 16, 1878. Image by Arkansas ShutterBug on Flickr under Creative Commons License, without alteration.

Impressions... and the Word

There are occasionally impressions of the Holy Spirit which guide men where no other guidance could have answered the end. I do not doubt the old story of the Quaker who was disturbed at night and could not sleep, and was led to go to a person’s house miles away, and knock at the door just at the time when the inhabitant was about to commit suicide — just in time to prevent the act. I have been the subject of such impressions myself, and have seen very singular results therefrom; but to live by impressions is oftentimes to live the life of a fool, and even to fall into downright rebellion against the revealed word of God. Not your impressions, but that which is in this book must always guide you. “To the law and to the testimony;” if it be not according to that word, the impression comes not from God — it may proceed from Satan, or from thine own distempered brain. Our prayer must be, “Order my steps in thy word."

From a sermon entitled "A Well-Ordered Life" delivered June 27, 1869. Image by Marinyu/Anyu under Creative Commons License.

God will guide us

In the great and in the little, Jehovah reigneth. Standing in the chariot of providence he holds the reins, and when the coursers seem to be wild and to know no bit or bridle, he guideth them according to his will. O rest thou in this, believer: he shall guide thee with his counsel. But this counsel also represents the written word - his decree is his counsel, his written Word is our counsel, his counsel to us.

Happy is the man who has God’s word always to direct him! What would the mariner be without his compass? What would the Christian be without the Bible? This is the unerring chart, the map in which every shoal is described, and all the channels from the port of destruction to the haven of salvation mapped, and marked by one who has sailed along the sea. Blessed, blessed be thou, O God, that we may trust thee to guide us now and guide us even to the end!

From a sermon entitled "Flesh And Spirit - A Riddle," delivered August 31, 1862. Flickr photo by Louise Docker; some rights reserved.

Take God for your compass

When we get into trouble the first thing we do is to knock at our neighbour’s door. “Have you heard about my trouble? Come and give me your advice.” If your neighbor were prudent he would say, “My brother, have you gone to God first? I will give you no advice till God has given you his counsel?” It is laughed at as an enthusiastic idea that men should ever take counsel of God. “Oh,” say some, “it is superstitious to imagine that God will ever give to his people guidance in their temporal affairs.” It would be superstitious to you perhaps; but it is not to a David, and it is not to any other child of God. He says, “My soul, wait only upon God.”

Christian, if you would know the path of duty take God for your compass; if you would know the way to steer your ship through the dark billows, put the tiller into the hand of the Almighty. Many a rock might be escaped, if we would let God take the helm; many a shoal or quicksand we might well avoid, if we would leave to his sovereign will to choose and to command. The old Puritans said, “As sure as ever a Christian carves for himself he’ll cut his own fingers;” and that is a great truth. Said another old divine, “He that goes before the cloud of God’s providence goes on a fool’s errand;” and so he does. We must mark God’s providence leading us; and then let us go. But he that goes before providence will be very glad to run back again.

Take your trouble, whatever it is, to the throne of the Most High and on your knees put up the prayer, “Lord, direct me.” You will not go wrong.

From a sermon entitled "Waiting Only Upon God," delivered August 2, 1857.

Flickr photo by Mel; some rights reserved.

He speaks to the young

...God regards not age in his speaking, but he condescends to speak with young children. Samuel was the Lord’s in his long-clothes, and served the Lord while a boy; and the Lord did not disdain to come to his little cot at night and call him by his name. We often talk as if it could not be possible that the Lord should speak with boys and girls; and yet, my brethren, there is not much more of a stoop in God’s talking with a child than in his speaking to a man. Indeed, the man has more of sin, and thus he is often farther off from God than the child. If the children here present are, by God’s grace, made willing to hear God’s voice — if they are obedient to the Lord, and have open hearts and attentive minds towards his Word — the great God will not pass them by. The Lord stoops to the lowliness of a child, and smiles at its simplicity. If young people are prayerful, thoughtful, reverent, believing, and obedient, the fact that, like Samuel, they are small in stature and young in years, shall be no detriment to them. The Lord will speak, and call them by their names.

My observation leads me to believe that many children have heard more of God than persons who are grown up. They may not find willing ears to hear what the Lord has said to them; but if they did, they could tell us marvellous things. Some of us remember how in our own childhood the Lord dealt wonderfully with us; and there were “prophecies which went before” concerning us, whose meaning we can now read, though at the time we did not understand them. I think that young Samuel was one of the fittest persons in the world for the Lord to choose as his messenger; and so far from its being unusual for young ears to hear the voice from heaven, I think they are the best prepared to do so. Four times the Lord said, “Samuel, Samuel”; and the child responded and said at last, when he knew who it was that called him, “Speak, Lord; for thy servant heareth.” Anyone here who can say from his heart, “Speak, Lord; for thy servant heareth,” will not be long without a word from the Invisible.

From a sermon entitled "A Private Enquiry," delivered October 9, 1890.
Photo by Paul Hart; some rights reserved.

Wait on the Lord for guidance

Note well... that, before David went to war, in each case, he waited upon God: “David enquired of the Lord.” Whenever we have any enterprise on hand, it is wise to wait upon God for direction, and for help. David had received divine guidance before; but counsel in one dilemma is not guidance for another. Though David had been led of God the first time to fight the Philistines, he did not consider that the direction then given would apply again, so he went a second time; and it is written, “David enquired of the Lord.” The answers which David received on these two occasions were different. The first time, the Lord said, “Go up.” The second time, he said, “Thou shalt not go up.” Had David been content with his former waiting upon God, he would have made a great mistake.

What you have to do today you may not have to do tomorrow, and what you did yesterday may have been right enough for yesterday, but it may be as wrong as possible for today. Wait more continually upon God, dear friends. Be not satisfied with what you have received of direction and support; but go to God again and again. If you go to him daily for manna, you may well go to him daily for counsel. David did this, and he acted wisely. I am afraid, dear friends, that many Christians go carelessly blundering on, as we say, “neck or nothing.” They do the first thing that comes to hand, and do not wait, and pause, and consider, as they ought.

I know some friends who seem to me to enter into great speculations which they had much better let alone, and who venture into various schemes which they would be much wiser to leave to other people. If they would only wait upon God, they would find themselves restrained from many things which now they attempt, and impelled to other things which now they neglect.... If a man will only wait upon God, it will help his own mind to form a correct judgment, and, besides that, the Lord will give him guidance of which he never dreamed.

From a sermon entitled "The Lord Leading, David Following," delivered November 14, 1889.

Photo by Matt L., some rights reserved.