How does God guide?

Hello

Our loving Father wants us to follow his commands. Jesus tells us what those commands are; Love our loving Father and Love Others (Matthew 22:35-40; Mark 12:28-31). Those are the most important commands. Jesus said so. Jesus gave us more commands than just those two, but I reckon all these other commands are just more detailed instructions on how to obey those two, most important, commands. (There is a link to a list of Jesus’ commands at the end of this article; “What does Jesus want his followers to do?”. Good news, there aren’t very many of them and they are mostly positive.)

So, our loving Father wants us to love him and love others. We understand that. But what do I do when I find myself in a situation where I must make a choice – perhaps a choice that may have a big impact on my future and, maybe, the future of others – I may need a direct answer to the question “How do I know what our loving Father wants me to do, in this situation?”

For me, the answer is found in a very simple prayer – “Your will be done”. Can I pray this prayer from my heart? I am certain that if I can pray “Your will be done” from my heart, in all circumstances, then our loving Father will answer that prayer and I will serve our loving Father as he wants me to serve him. However, I should make it clear that this is what works for me. Our loving Father knows that each of his children is different, and like any loving parent, he treats us differently. The important thing, for all of us children, is the state of our hearts. Read on.

When our loving Father looks at me, he looks at my heart:

“The Lord does not look at the things people look at. People look at the outward appearance, but the Lord looks at the heart.” (1 Samuel 16:7)

David understood this:

“… a broken and contrite heart, O Lord, you will not despise.” (Psalm 51:17)

So, what is the state of my heart? Do I really want to be guided by our loving Father? Do I really want to serve him? If I do really want to serve him, then I can be confident that I am trusting him as I should, and I can be confident that he will look after me, and I can be confident that all will be well. I can be confident that, if I wander off the path I walk with our loving Father, I will hear his voice saying “This is the way. Walk in it.” (Isaiah 30:21). I’m not saying that surrendering everything to our loving Father is easy. It isn’t. But if we tell him we want to surrender our lives to him, and keep telling him, then he will answer those prayers.

For me, surrender is logical. The only logical response to our loving Father, creator of all things, is surrender. “OK, Father, let’s do things your way”.

Let’s look at a couple more important questions: “Who does our loving Father guide?” and “How does our loving Father guide?”

Who does our loving Father guide?

I don’t think our loving Father guides everybody. I reckon he guides people who want to do his work. Do I have a heart that wants to serve him? If I am not committed to doing what he wants me to do, I probably won’t hear his voice guiding me. In fact, I probably won’t want to hear it.

Do I want to do what our loving Father wants me to do? If I can be sure that my heart is surrendered to him, then I can be sure that I want to do what he wants me to do.

How does our loving Father guide?

Our loving Father can use any means he chooses to guide us but, broadly speaking, he is likely to guide us in one of two ways: speaking to us directly or speaking to us through the words of other humans.

Our loving Father speaking to us directly can mean we hear a voice in our heads that we recognize as him speaking to us. We may hear him using words or, perhaps, we may just have a feeling that a particular direction is the right way to go. Some people see visions in which our loving Father, or Jesus his son, or an angel, speaks to them. Some find that our loving Father speaks to them through dreams. If we have experiences like this, how can we be sure that it really is our loving Father speaking to us? Sometimes we can’t be sure. But we can be sure that he loves us, and we can trust him. Sometimes we take the next step, being uncertain, but trusting our loving Father to look after us. We can do so confidently. On a personal note, decades of experimenting with listening for our loving Father’s guidance has taught me that the genuine experience of him is peaceful. If I feel that our loving Father may be speaking to me, but the experience is accompanied by a feeling of fear or worry then it may not a real experience of him. However, we should remember the experiences of Moses, Jonah, and many others who heard our loving Father telling them what he wanted them to do and they experienced fear and even, in Jonah’s case, panic. But once these people were able to get their hearts in the right place, they were able to calm down and get on with doing the things our loving Father wanted them to do.

Our loving Father will often speak to us through the words of other humans. These may be the words of authors of writings found in the Bible. They may be the words of others who have written since the Bible was completed. They may be the words of sisters and brothers we meet today. And we should be listening for our loving Father’s voice talking to us through the words of all sisters and brothers. Jesus said:

“I praise you, Father, Lord of heaven and earth, because you have hidden these things from the wise and learned, and revealed them to little children. Yes, Father, for this is what you were pleased to do.” (Matthew 11:25-26)

Although our loving Father may speak to us through others, it is important to remember that, we must never rely solely on other humans to direct us. We should certainly listen to others, but what our loving Father wants us to do must be worked out between us and him in prayer. He, and he alone, knows what he wants me to do.

“Trust in the LORD with all your heart, and do not rely on your own insight. In all your ways acknowledge him, and he will make straight your paths.” (Proverbs 3:5-6)

“Your ears shall hear a word behind you, saying, ‘This is the way, walk in it,’ when you turn to the right or when you turn to the left.” (Isaiah 30:20-21)

Note these verses don’t say I will always be hearing our loving Father directing me. But, if my heart is surrendered to him, he will make the way ahead clear and will correct me when I wander off the path

How can I be ready to hear our loving Father guiding me?

Stay in touch with him.

“Abide in me, and I in you. As the branch cannot bear fruit by itself, unless it abides in the vine, neither can you, unless you abide in me. I am the vine; you are the branches. He who abides in me, and I in him, he it is that bears much fruit, for apart from me you can do nothing.” (John 15:4-5).

May our loving, heavenly Father keep us safe, and give us his peace as he guides us along his way.

Peter O

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