Devotional | Finding Freedom in God’s Directives

Show me your ways, Lord, teach me your paths. Guide me in your truth and teach me, for you are God my Saviour, and my hope is in you all day long.
– Psalm 25:4-5 NIV

Did you set resolutions at the beginning of the year? If so, how are they going?

Gone are the days of resolution-setting for me after years of coming up short by the time I reached February. It became too much to endure the disappointment for the next eleven months! Instead, I set intentions. The very word has a much gentler resonance about it which suits my personality.

Intentions allow me to consider the type of person I want to be, the way I interact with others and the manner in which I tread the earth. This allows me to question my decisions: If I do this, does it align with my intentions for the year? Will this choice help me to become a better version of myself? This gives me a sense of evolving and growing internally, while outwardly, I am physically a year older with a few more lines around my eyes and an ever-softening jawline.

Listening to a sermon given by Dr. Timothy Keller recently, I realise that without meaning to, my intentions have in fact set me apart from God. You see, I have thought about who I want to become, how I want to evolve to be a better version of myself. Of course, I want God’s will for my life, but I’m the one impatiently thinking about the next step, instead of waiting and listening for God’s voice.

In his sermon, Disciplines of Guidance (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EvP08Mm3J9U) Dr. Keller uses Psalm 25 to explore the way in which we desire the will of God for our lives, yet we also want to keep control, so in fact we want God’s will to fit in with our decisions. He gives an example of being lost and needing to find the way to a place we have never been. We see a man who looks like a local resident, so we stop and ask for directions. This person informs us that it is a complicated route but that he will try to explain, but when it becomes obvious that we are still bewildered, he offers to get in the car with us to give us directions along the way. This means that we only know what we need in the moment; the next turn right, then only after that does our guest give us the next directive and only after that, the next and so forth.

There are two main points to this analogy. The first is that we need a guide not guidance alone. God does not just give us guidance; this is something He does for us as our Guide. The second point is that we are only given the guidance that we need in each particular moment. We are not given the whole map that would totally overwhelm and confuse us.

This means that allowing the will of God in our lives requires patience and obedience, virtues that are challenging to adhere to in this online-driven, attention-grabbing environment that we live.

Yet in verses 12 -13 of Psalm 25, we read:
“Who, then, are those who fear the Lord?
He will instruct them in the ways they should choose.
They will spend their days in prosperity,
And their descendants will inherit the land.”

When we hold our God in reverence and seek first the Kingdom of God in all things, we will hear His instruction and guidance and enjoy the abundance that only God can give. Yet, what if we are unsure whether our latest decision is the will of God? Could we possibly ruin the calling on our lives by making an incorrect choice? What if we keep getting in God’s way?

There are many times when I’m driving my car with Siri as my guide that she is required to re-route because I’ve failed to follow her instruction for where I’m supposed to be going. I like to think of this analogy when I’m tying myself in knots, about whether the decision I’ve just made was genuinely God’s will for the direction I was supposed to choose.

In Ephesians 2:10, Paul reminds us that we are “God’s handiwork, created in Christ Jesus to do good works, which God prepared in advance for us.” This means that God has created us for our own unique purpose and no decision of ours will block the way; we will simply ‘re-route’ if necessary. I find this reassurance extremely liberating.

It means that regardless of whether we prefer resolutions or intentions, our first focus must be on God and His directions, without fear of ‘getting it wrong.’ This is where our hope for the future resides.

As Christians, we know this, but do we truly live it daily?