CHAPTER 8
CHAPTER 8
Difficulties Concerning Guidance
You have now begun the life of faith. You have given yourself to the Lord to be His wholly and completely, and you are now entirely in His hands to be molded and fashioned according to His own divine purpose into a vessel unto His honor. Your one most earnest desire is to follow Him wherever He may lead you and to be very pliable in His hands. You are trusting Him to “work in you both to will and to do of His good pleasure.” But you find a great difficulty here. You have not yet learned to know the voice of the Good Shepherd and are therefore in great doubt and perplexity as to what really is His will concerning you.
There is a way out of all these difficulties to the fully surrendered soul. The first thing is to be sure that you really do purpose to obey the Lord in every respect. If this is your purpose and your soul only needs to know the will of God in order to consent to it, then you surely cannot doubt His willingness to make His will known and to guide you in the right paths. There are many very clear promises in reference to this:
John 10:3–4: “‘He calleth his own sheep by name, and leadeth them out. And when he putteth forth his own sheep, he goeth before them, and the sheep follow him: for they know his voice.’”
John 14:26: “‘But the Comforter, which is the Holy Ghost, whom the Father will send in my name, he shall teach you all things, and bring all things to your remembrance, whatsoever I have said unto you.’”
James 1:5–6: “If any of you lack wisdom, let him ask of God, that giveth to all men liberally, and upbraideth not; and it shall be given him.”
Our faith must confidently look for and expect God’s guidance. This is essential, for in James 1:6–7, we are told, “Let him ask in faith, nothing wavering. For he that wavereth is like a wave of the sea driven with the wind and tossed. For let not that man think that he shall receive any thing of the Lord.” God promises His divine guidance, and if you seek it, you are sure to receive it.
Next, remember that our God has all knowledge and all wisdom and that it is very possible He may guide you into paths wherein He knows great blessings are awaiting you. Nevertheless, to the shortsighted human eyes around you, everything seems to result in confusion and loss. His very love for you may perhaps lead you to run counter to the loving wishes of even your dearest friends. Luke 14:26–33 and similar passages state that in order to be a disciple and follower of your Lord, you may perhaps be called upon to forsake inwardly all that you have—father or mother, or brother or sister, or husband or wife, or maybe your own life. Unless the possibility of this is clearly recognized, you will very likely get into difficulty, because it often happens that the child of God who enters upon this life of obedience is sooner or later led into paths that meet with the disapproval of those he loves best. Unless he is prepared for this and can trust the Lord through it all, he will scarcely know what to do.
How does God’s guidance come to us? And how do we know His voice? There are four ways in which He reveals His will to us—through the scriptures, through providential circumstances, through the convictions of our own higher judgment, and through the inward impressions of the Holy Spirit on our minds. Where these four harmonize, it is safe to say that God speaks. If God tells me in one voice to do or to leave anything undone, He cannot possibly tell me the opposite in another voice. Therefore my rule for distinguishing the voice of God is to bring it to the test of this harmony.
The scriptures come first. If you are in doubt upon any subject, you must, first of all, consult the Bible about it and see whether there is any law there to direct you. Until you have found and obeyed God’s will as it is there revealed, you must not ask nor expect a separate, direct, personal revelation. Where our Father has written out for us a plain direction about anything, He will not of course make a special revelation to us about that thing. And if we fail to search out and obey the scripture rule, where there is one, and look instead for an inward voice, we open ourselves to delusions and almost inevitably get into error. The Bible does not always give a rule for every particular course of action, and in these cases we need and must expect guidance in other ways. But the scriptures are far more explicit, even about details, than most people think, and there are not many important affairs in life for which a clear direction may not be found in God’s book.
If, therefore, you find yourself in perplexity, first of all search and see whether the Bible speaks on the point in question, asking God to make plain to you, by the power of His Spirit, through the scriptures, what is His mind. And whatever shall seem to you plainly taught there, obey. No special guidance will ever be given about a point on which the scriptures are explicit, nor could any guidance ever be contrary to the scriptures.
Remember that the Bible is a book of principles and not a book of disjointed aphorisms. Isolated texts can be made to give approval to things to which the principles of scripture are totally opposed.
If, however, upon searching the Bible you do not find any principles that will settle your special point of difficulty, then seek guidance in the other ways mentioned, and God will surely voice Himself to you, by a conviction of your judgment, by providential circumstances, or by a clear inward impression. If any one of these tests fails, it is not safe to proceed, but wait in quiet trust until the Lord shows you the point of harmony, which He surely will, sooner or later, if it is His voice that is speaking. Anything that is out of this divine harmony must be rejected as not coming from God.
Never forget that “impressions” can come from other sources as well as from the Holy Spirit. The strong personalities of those around us are the source of a great many of our impressions. Impressions also arise often from our wrong physical conditions, which color things far more than we dream. And finally, impressions come from spiritual enemies. These spiritual enemies, whoever or whatever they may be, must by necessity communicate with us by means of our spiritual faculties, so their voices will be, as the voice of God is, an inward impression made upon our spirits. It is not enough to have a “leading.” We must find out the source of that leading before we give ourselves up to follow it. It is not enough, either, for the leading to be very “remarkable,” or the coincidences to be very striking, to stamp it as being surely from God. In all ages of the world, evil and deceiving agencies have been able to work miracles, foretell events, reveal secrets, and give “signs.” And God’s people have always been emphatically warned about being deceived thereby.
It is essential, therefore, that our “leadings” should all be tested by the teachings of scripture. But this alone is not enough. They must be tested as well by our own spiritually enlightened judgment or what is familiarly called “common sense.”
Some, however, may say here, “But I thought we were not to depend on our human understanding in divine things.” We are not to depend on our unenlightened human understanding but upon our human judgment and common sense enlightened by the Spirit of God. That is, God will speak to us through the abilities He has Himself given us and not independently of them. The third test to which our impressions must be brought is that of providential circumstances. If a “leading” is of God, the way will always open for it. Our Lord assures us of this when He says, in John 10:4, “And when he putteth forth his own sheep, he goeth before them, and the sheep follow him: for they know his voice.” Notice here the expressions “goeth before” and “follow.” He goes before to open a way, and we are to follow in the way He opens. It is never a sign of a divine leading when the Christian insists on opening his own way and riding roughshod over all opposing things. If the Lord “goes before” us, He will open the door for us, and we shall not need to batter down doors for ourselves.
The fourth point is that just as our impressions must be tested, as I have shown, by the other three voices, so must these other voices be tested by our inward impressions. If we feel a “stop in our minds” about anything, we must wait until that is removed before acting. A Christian who had advanced with unusual rapidity in the divine life gave me, as her secret, this simple direction: “I always mind the checks.” We must not ignore the voice of our inward impressions. When the spiritual world is opened to a soul, both the good and the evil there will meet it. But we must not be discouraged by this. With the four tests I have mentioned and a divine sense of “oughtness” derived from the harmony of all of God’s voices, there is nothing to fear. And to me it seems that the blessedness and joy of this direct communication of God’s will to us is one of our grandest privileges. That God cares enough about us to desire to regulate the details of our lives is the strongest proof of love He could give. God’s law, therefore, is only another name of God’s love; and the more minutely that law descends into the details of our lives, the surer we are made of the depth and reality of the love. We can never know the full joy and privileges of the life hid with Christ in God until we have learned the lesson of daily and hourly guidance.
God’s promise is that He will work in us to will as well as to do of His good pleasure. This means, of course, that He will take possession of our will and work it for us. His suggestions will come to us, not so much as commands from the outside as desires springing up within. This makes it a service of perfect liberty. It is always easy to do what we desire to do, no matter how difficult the accompanying circumstances may be. He “writes his laws on our hearts and on our minds,” so that our affection and our understanding embrace them, and we are drawn to obey instead of being driven to it.
It sometimes happens, however, that in spite of all our efforts to discover the truth, the divine sense of “oughtness” does not seem to come, and our doubts and perplexities continue unenlightened. In such a case there is nothing to do but to wait until the light comes. But we must wait in faith and in an attitude of entire surrender, saying a continual yes to the will of our Lord, let it be what it may. If the suggestion is from Him, it will continue and strengthen; if it is not from Him, it will disappear. If it continues, if every time we are brought into close communion with the Lord it seems to return, if it troubles us in our moments of prayer and disturbs all our peace, and if it conforms to the test of the divine harmony, we may then feel sure it is from God, and we must yield to it or suffer an unspeakable loss.
In all doubtful things stand still and refrain from action until God gives you light to know more clearly His mind concerning them. Very often you will find that the doubt has been His voice calling you to come into more perfect conformity to His will. But sometimes these doubtful things are only temptations, or morbid feelings, to which it would be most unwise for you to yield. The only safe way is to wait until you can act in faith, for “whatsoever is not of faith is sin.”
Take all your present perplexities, then, to the Lord. Tell Him you only want to know and obey His voice, and ask Him to make it plain to you. Promise Him that you will obey, whatever it may be. Believe implicitly that He is guiding you according to His Word. In all doubtful things, wait for clear light. Look and listen for His voice continually. And the moment you are sure of it, then, but not until then, yield an immediate obedience. Trust Him to make you forget the impression if it is not His will. And if it continues and is in harmony with all His other voices, do not be afraid to obey.
Above everything else, trust Him. Nowhere is faith more needed than here. He has promised to guide. You have asked Him to do it. And now believe that He does, and take what comes as being His guidance. No earthly parent or master could guide his children or servants if they should refuse to take his commands as being really the expression of his will. And God cannot guide those souls who never trust Him enough to believe that He is doing it.
Above all, do not be afraid of this blessed life, lived hour by hour and day by day under the guidance of your Lord! If He seeks to bring you out of the world and into very close conformity to Himself, do not shrink from it. It is your most blessed privilege. Rejoice in it. Embrace it eagerly. Let everything go that it may be yours.