Who is the man who fears the Lord? He will instruct Him in the way he should choose. Psalm 25:12
This is just one of many examples of God’s willingness to guide you in your life journey. Perhaps you are seeking God’s will for your life. How would you ever come to know what it is He wants you to do?
Early in my personal journey, I was tentative about following God. Not only was I not sure I knew how to discern the will of God, I was genuinely afraid of knowing what it was. What if God wanted me to do something that made me unhappy? What if His guidance was in direct opposition to my own personal goals?
Down through the years, I lost my fear of following God. I learned that God always has my best interest at heart. My moments of greatest fulfillment have been moments when I acted in obedience to the will of God. Now, instead of being afraid to follow, my greatest fear is of missing God’s guidance or making decisions without His direction. I trust God to know what lies ahead. Make no mistake, there will always be some cost in following God, but the cost of disobedience is far greater.
Each of us comes to a moment I call The Crisis of Decision.You will inevitably come to a crossroad in your life when you will have to choose which way to go. You may be choosing between two roads or trying to figure out which road of many is the road God wants you to travel. A person facing the crisis of decision needs guidance from God. Human wisdom will not answer this question. Human counselors can offer no insight or guidance in the face of this decision.
You might be on the front end of your life trying to discern God’s guidance in the matter of a career. You might be in mid-life struggling to know God’s leadership about a job change. You might be a retired person seeking God’s guidance about relocating to be near your children. You might be faced with a decision about treatment options regarding your health. All of these decisions bring a person to a moment of crisis. How will you know the way you should choose?
A person facing the crisis of decision is also facing the Crisis of Direction. A person who fears the Lord has a sincere desire to know the right way. Here it says the Lord will show him the way he should choose.
I found it interesting that this particular word translated choosecan refer to either a divine choice or a human choice. In every decision, God gives you the freedom to choose your own way. He will never force His will upon your life. However, a person who fears the Lord, leaves this decision to the Him. God has given me the freewill to choose, but if I am wise, I know that my life will be better if I choose God’s choice over my own. Jesus struggled with God’s direction in the Garden of Gethsemane. As he prayed there, He realized the agony of the cross was just ahead. He prayed that God might release him from that assignment. However, He also prayed, “yet not My will, but Yours be done.” Luke 22:42
God gives you the freedom to choose, but He wants you to choose the way of His will. How do you know God’s will? It will not be immediately apparent. It will not simply unfold in the course of living. The person who experiences the crisis of direction is the person who fears the Lord. The secret of the Lord is for those who fear Him, and He will make them know His covenant. Psalm 25:14
God’s will for your life is a divine secret. That secret is not within my power to know. It is up to the Lord to make it known. God’s will is hidden from the viewpoint of the natural man and the natural mind. But God reveals His will to those who fear Him.
The crisis of direction is that moment you come before God asking for His wisdom. Like Jesus, you are surrendering your own will in favor of His plan for your life. Many years ago, my life was impacted by the story of one man’s effort to know the will of God. His name was Everette Howard. He sensed that God might have a plan for his life. He went inside the church where his father was pastor. He took a pen and paper and knelt at the altar of the church. On his paper, he wrote promises of all the things he was willing to do for God. It was his list. He signed his name at the bottom of the paper and laid it at the altar. I suppose he expected thunder or lightning or some other sign of approval from God. Instead, there was only silence. After a time of waiting, God impressed upon his heart to do something different. So he tore up the paper he had written. Then he took a blank sheet of paper and signed his name at the bottom. From that moment forward, He trusted God to fill it in. That is the crisis of direction. It is that moment when you surrender up your life to the will of God even without knowing what it is. Are you willing to offer your life to God as a blank sheet of paper, allowing Him to write the story of your life?
The person who fears the Lord trusts God’s wisdom above his or her own. I am always amazed by the story of Abraham and Lot as they parted company. Abraham allowed Lot to choose the part of the land he wanted. In so doing, Abraham was releasing his life to God’s choice for him. Whatever God wanted for him, was what he wanted for himself and his family. Can you leave the choice up to God?
Finally, comes the Crisis of Discovery. How can a person truly know the will of God? This may especially concern you if you don’t consider yourself to meet the qualifications. You may feel unworthy to ask God for direction or to receive it. You feel disqualified from discovering the will of God. In the wake of that, this psalm has some good news for those of us who may feel disqualified or in some other way inhibited from being in a positon to know the will of God
If I am to know His will it must be by His Grace. “Good and upright is the Lord, therefore He instructs sinners in the way.” Psalm 25:8 The very next verse says, “He teaches the humble His way.” Psalm 25:9
Never should you approach God with any sense of deserving His guidance. All of us are unworthy. We are the blind groping for His hand to lead us. Should He so choose to show us the way of His will, it will be by His grace. Acknowledge your personal sinfulness before the Lord. Admit your former rebellion against His will and His way. Repent (tell God you are sorry) and offer up your life to God in absolute surrender, with no strings attached.
Let me give you this word of wisdom. If you come to know the will of God, it must come by a way of His choosing. In Psalm 25:12, the Hebrew word, translated instruct, comes from a word that means to shoot as an archer would shoot an arrow. When I discovered the root meaning of that word, I immediately thought of Jonathan’s signal to David that it was time to leave the house of Saul. How did he let him know? He shot an arrow. The arrow was a signal, a sign. (I Samuel 18:20ff)
God will instruct you, but it will be by way of God’s choosing. He will show you, but you will not know until you see that arrow of direction that God shoots your way. Something will transpire that will serve as your sign, your signal. I can assure you, you will know that moment when it comes. For Moses, the crisis of discovery came at a burning bush. For David, that moment came when Samuel showed up at his house to anoint him king. Many times, my discovery of the will of God came at a simple moment that turned into a Divine Appointment when I clearly knew that God was speaking to me.
In your quest to know God’s will, be assured of this: Who is the man who fears the Lord? He will instruct Him in the way he should choose. Psalm 25:12
Photo by Vladislav Babienko
