Reflections

Unconscious Guidance

No serious study on Divine guidance can ignore the fact that God guides our lives even though we are unaware of it. We often call this unconscious guidance. A great deal of our guidance in life takes place when we are not conscious of it, for God knowing the end from the beginning arranges circumstances and events in our lives for our highest good.

The story of Ruth in the Old Testament illustrates most beautifully this important truth. After committing her life to the God of Israel, Ruth, together with her mother-in law, Naomi, came to Bethlehem to eke out their existence in the direst poverty. Things were so bad that Ruth had to try to make ends meet by taking on the job of a gleaner, and whist doing this task, she happened to light on a part of the field which belonged to Boaz. From there the story takes on an entirely different turn, bringing Ruth from poverty and penury to become the wife of one of the richest men of her day. Was this just luck? No-it was the providence of God moving through her life and bringing her in line with His perfect purposes.

How many times do we just happen to be in the right place at the right time? Some years ago I met an evangelist In Tokyo airport who told me he had just missed his plane. As we talked, the announcement came over the public address system that the plane he missed had crashed into a mountain-with no survivors. We knelt together in the midst of that crowded airport to give God thanks for His unconscious guidance, How thankful we ought to be that God is working for our highest good-even when we are not conscious of it.

Reflections
He guides-not overrides
Apart from the three prerequisites to guidance (prayer meditation listening) there are other aspects to this fascinating subject. We ask ourselves: Just how does God go about the task of guiding His children into the best paths?
There can be no doubt that if God had a plan for every single detail of our lives, such as what shoe we should put on first thing in the morning, then our personalities would be dwarfed and our moral nature cramped. If all that was necessary was just to obey His dictated orders through the day, then there would be no development of our personalities or growth in the areas of our inner being. Exercise in freedom is essential to growth and development, and so God is concerned, when guiding us, that at the same time He does not override us, This does not mean of course, that God does not at times condescend to guide us concerning certain details, but generally His main concern is to develop within us mature attitudes so that we can handle those details in a mature way.
Every father concerned about the true development of his child gives that child a wide scope for the exercise of judgement and decision. But he is also swift to break in at times with words of guidance and instruction which his love and longer experience qualify him to give. Guidance is therefore guidance into the highest development of our characters so that we respond to  life with deep insight, clear judgement and rich understanding.

Reflections

'I Don't Feel Like a Quiet Time'

We need to develop a healthy spiritual appetite through daily prayer and the reading of God's Word-the Bible. However the question to consider is this: Do we have to wait until we want to pray and read God's Word or do we do it whether we feel like it or not? The answer is we do it whether we feel like it or not.

The Christian life is not simply a belief in certain doctrines but a discipline in which we move beyond creeds-to deeds. The deed is really the creed-the thing we believe is enough to put into practise. We do not believe in what we do not practise. Those who go from week to week without establishing a daily discipline  of prayer and Bible reading are severing themselves from the very life by which they grow.

But how, you ask do we go about changing our feelings  so that we want to pray and read the Bible? Firstly, examine your heart and see if there is anything in your life that needs to to be corrected? Is there some sin or spiritual violation that needs to put right? If there is, then attend to it at once. The old saying that sin will keep you from prayer, but prayer will keep you from sin, is right. Secondly, recognise that there nothing you can do to change your feelings. You cannot, for example. say to your heart-feel happy, for the power to change your feelings lies beyond your will. What you can do, however, is to exert your will so that you keep your 'Quiet Time'  and as you expose your thoughts to God in prayer and through the reading of the Word then your thoughts, opened up to God, will soon bring about a change in your feelings.

Reflections

Sure Guidance

Behind the multiplicity of circumstances there is a thread that unifies the whole of life. That thread is the unerring guidance of our good and gracious God.

If we are to make our way steadfastly and contentedly through this world then we must do as the navigators do and take our bearings from fixed and pre-determined points. The great art of navigation depends on the existence of certain definite points from which a skilful navigator can take a bearing and guide his ship toward its destination. It may be a star, a lighthouse or a prominent headland- but it must be fixed. He cannot take his bearing from a cloud. or a floating spar, for navigation is possible as one takes a bearing from that which is solid, definite and immovable.

It is not dissimilar with the voyage of life. We who are conscious of being participants in the universal scheme of things, need from time to time to take our bearings from certain fixed and immovable points. God in His great and everlasting love has given us those points, and as we navigate by them we make our way safely past the rocks and shoals to the safety of the heavenly harbour I believe in the things that God has fixed in this world to help me navigate toward eternity. I believe in His love. I believe in His Word. I believe in Prayer. I believe in the Cross. These are fixed points. Accurate navigation depends on the fact one can be sure about something. You and I can be sure of God.

Reflections

A Bible- based Image of God.

The carry -over from an earthly to a Heavenly Father is seen quite clearly in Matt. 7:11. It calls us that a child can expect to see the virtues of his parents magnified in his Heavenly Father.

J.B. Phillips writes, the early concept of God is invariably founded upon the child's idea of his Father. If he is lucky enough to have a good father this is all to the good, providing of course that the concept of God grows with the rest of his personality. But if the child is afraid, or worse still afraid and feeling guilty because of his own father he is afraid, the chances are that his father in Heaven will appear to him a fearful Being. If a child had experience a good deal of negative feeling in his relationship with the earthly authority figures in his life, then he tends to carry this over into his concept of God later in adult life.

When a person becomes  a christian, although he has access to the true picture of God in the Bible, he retains to a certain extent attitudes and feelings drawn from the past which are difficult to break. The influence of twenty or more years do not just fall away. God doesn't descent on a new Christian, drill a hole in his head and place there a new concept of Himself instead. He encourages that person to delve deep into His Word to gain a picture of what He is really like, so that the expulsive power of the Scripture's truth concerning God can eventually and ultimately cancel out what is untrue and bring that person into a true understanding of what He is really like.

Reflections

Christ or Circumstances

If we do not allow ourselves to be led by the Lord then we shall be driven by our circumstances, or by the people who surround us. When the Israelites rebelled against God and refused to follow Him, then God informed them that He  would not travel with them. Moffat translates Ex.33:3 in this way; 'I

will not go with you. I will send an angel in front of you'. Religion became a secondhand affair in which they were led by an angel, rather than by direct contact with God.

When we lack a living real contact with God through His Son Jesus Christ we turn to things we can see, rather than depend on the invisible but reliable  wisdom that supports the universe. Some Christians turn to the stars for guidance, but it is sheer materialism to believe your life is determined by lumps of matter floating in space. It is a sign of inner collapse when someone who professes faith in Christ draws their inspiration from a daily horoscope rather than from a vital contact with God through His Word. Instead of facing the facts of life in the spirit and power which Jesus Christ gives to all those who are His, they turn to the stars to determine their destiny, only to find that instead of being led into sure ways, they are led into a swamp.

We must regain the sense of being led for if we are not led by God, then we will allow ourselves to be led by anything that comes. We Christians must work from principles not pressures, and experience a vital daily contact  with God and the Lord Jesus Christ. I say again, we will be led either by Christ or by circumstances.

Reflections
The priority f Repentance
Repentance is the primary plank to every Christian foundation, and without this there can be no continuance in the Christian life. Repentance means a change of mind, in which a sinner changes his mind about what he believes to what  he knows what God believes. As the root of sin is self-centredness , it is from this we must turn if we are to experience the salvation of God in the way the New Testament unfolds it.
Charles Finney, the great revivalist of  a previous generation saw and witnessed the genuine conversion of thousands of souls because of his insistence on the need for a real and radical repentance. He presented the claims of Jesus Christ in a way that people had to repent in order to become Christians. His way was no slip into the Kingdom by the- side door type of evangelism but a confrontation with sinners that led them to see that the only way into the Kingdom of God was through the door of real repentance.
The word Repentance implies the conviction that God is wholly right and the sinner wholly wrong. When a person comes into the Christian life with this conviction clearly  established he discovers a significant principle at the beginning of his christian experience which enables him, in any subsequent encounters with God, to agree with the Almighty and believe that He is always wholly right and never wrong. We do not do men and women a service unless we confront them with the real issue of repentance, for without it there can be no meaningful continuance in the christian life.

Reflections

The Prod to Prayer

The question often arises in the minds of God's children: Why does God allow so many problems to crowd into my life? Why does He permit me to face such severe pressures? There are many answers to this question, such as He permits things in order that our characters might develop, or that through the irritation finer qualities might emerge in our spirits, but the main reason why God allows problems and difficulties is that they become a prod to prayer. It is so often our need that drives us to the Throne of Grace, in fervent believing prayer.

New Zealand (so  am told) is the home of more flightless birds than any other country in the world. The Kiwi, Kakapo, the Penguin and the Weka Rail. These birds , say the scholars once had wings, but they lost the use of them because of the fact that there were no dangerous animals to keep them on the alert. They had no necessity to fly and hence had no ability to fly. The cost of their immunity from fearsome and dangerous beasts was the power of their wings.

It might well be the same with us, were it not for the fact that God allows problems to crowd in upon us. The dangers we dread, and the problems we shrink from, are the invitation from heaven to expand our wings in the Spirit. If earth offered all that we need then we would be no greater that superior beasts without a thought above the clouds. But God allows difficulties to crowd our pathway and trials to come upon us to remind us that earth in itself does not contain everything we need. We need Him.