Trust in the LORD with all your heart and lean not on your own understanding; in all your ways acknowledge him, and he will make your paths straight. (Proverbs 3:5-6)
It’s amazing how many people look for guidance each day. Sadly, most of them look in the wrong place. Millions turn to the horoscopes in the nation’s newspapers. It really is amazing how people so governed by a ‘scientific outlook’ in the rest of life can believe that the positions of the planets can affect what might happen to them that day. For Christians, such things are not only forbidden, they are completely unnecessary; for God himself – our Father! - has promised to guide us.
What an amazing thought that is! That the sovereign, eternal God of the whole cosmos has, not just plans - but plans for us! And that he wants to guide us into them! Yet this is what the Bible assures us of, as when he said, ‘“For I know the plans I have for you,” declares the LORD, “plans to prosper you and not to harm you, plans to give you hope and a future”’ (Jeremiah 29:11).
But God’s plans for our life are not something cold and deterministic; and here lies a major difference between ‘the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ’ (Ephesians 1:3) and the Muslim ‘Allah’. In Islam, whatever Allah wills, happens; our lot is simply to be in ‘submission’ to it (which is what the word ‘Islam’ means). But with Father God, while his will is always carried out, we can, amazingly, be ‘God’s fellow-workers’ in it (2 Corinthians 6:1). We can resist his will or respond to his will; but if God doesn’t get to us through the front door, he has a way of coming in through the back door! This is a far more exciting and dynamic view of God and his plans for our lives. Such is how Father deals with his children.
God’s promise for each of us today is that, if we will set our heart on him and ask him, he will guide us.
The LORD says, ‘I will make you wise and show you where to go. I will guide you and watch over you.’ (Psalm 32:8, NCV)
Copyright © 2017 Martin Manser and Mike Beaumont
