After the talk on
James 4:13-5:6 Sunday night it made me think a little of what I had a read a few days earlier in my 365 days with Spurgeon and so I thought I would share it.
"My soul, wait thou only upon God.” Psalm 62:5
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.
But do not do as some do.
Many a person comes to me and says, “I want your advice, sir; as my minister, perhaps you could tell me what I ought to do.”
Sometimes it is about their getting married.
Why, they have made up their minds before they ask me, they know that; and then they come to ask my advice.
“Do you think that such and such a thing would be prudent, sir?
Do you think I should change my position in life?”
And so on.
Now, first of all, I like to know, “Have you made your mind up?”
In most cases they have – and I fear you serve God the same,
We make up our mind what we are going to do, and then we go down on our knees, and say, “Lord, show me what I ought to do;” and then we follow out our intention and say, “I asked God’s direction.”
My dear friend, you did ask it, but you did not follow it; you followed your own.
You liked God’s direction so long as it pointed the way you wish to go; but if God’s direction led the contrary to what you considered your own interest, it might have been a very long while before you had carried it out.
But if we in truth seek God’s guidance for us, we shall not go wrong, I know.
Charles Spurgeon
5 comments:
How does one know what God's direction is? If we are too skeptical of our own mind, we will choose to do the opposite of what we first decided, just to be sure we're not going with our own wants and desires! Clearly that's not what Spurgeon's calling for... but I mean, on a practical level, making decisions is realllly hard. Obviously there are over-arching principles which guide us, but in this age of choice, so many paths could have us bring glory to God. And that means it's all about the attitude with which we do things. Then the question remains, how do we choose what to do!? sigh... i may or may not be trying to decide things at the moment haha
I hear ya Soph and by no means is it easy to know in all circumstances what decisions to make. For instance before I got married to SP and before he even asked me - I wanted God to say 'You should marry SP' and he didn't.. Right!
I guess being prayful to God and open to him guiding us where he would have us - even if that might mean doing something which isn't necessarily top of our 'wish list'. I know how hard it is Soph and as you said in this world where there are many paths which might be 'right'..
I read the book 'Guidance and the Voice of God' which I thought was really good - it didn't give me all the answers of how to know what to do but it helped me to think through how I listen to God and how I can be guided by him.
Will pray for you as you may (or may not be) making decisions. Call me anytime lil sis ;)
One thing that can help is to keep your head in the bible - the more we surround ourselves with God's word, the more we will see things His way.
Good advice Alison ;)
yeah, I just need to start following it!
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