How Then Shall We Go? Finding the Path Ahead

“And be not conformed to this world: but be ye transformed by the renewing of your mind, that ye may prove what is that good, and acceptable, and perfect, will of God” Romans 12:2

         It is possible to determine God’s good, perfect and acceptable will. It involves the mind and is learned, not hit upon. Paul calls it having “the mind of Christ” (1 Cor. 2:16), which is why he told the Corinthian believers that he never stopped praying that they’d be “filled with the knowledge of his will in all wisdom and spiritual understanding” (Col. 1:9). How do we find the way to go? Listen to the answer from God: “I will instruct thee and teach thee in the way which thou shalt go…” (Psl. 32:8a).

         But not only do I have the authority of the Scriptures to prove this; I know it by experience. Any direction from God that has come to me in what seemed at the time to be “in a flash,” I realized later was the result of (in my case) sixty-five years of instruction by the Spirit of God through Word of God. For the most part, I have, as Henry Jowett said, to keep my soul “porous toward the Divine, ” so that now I am more able to immediately eliminate what God has explicitly forbidden and allow the Holy Spirit to bring back to my mind those things He has taught me about the character of God, the teachings of Jesus Christ, and the instruction by the human authors of the Word of God under the direct inspiration of God.

         The wise men found the way to go, the path ahead to the newborn King, by travelling at night. Otherwise they would not have been able to see the star that stood over where He lay. This may be true for us, as well. I have learned through this journey that it’s much easier to see the lights of home in the dark. It shines brighter than ever. In the meantime, by God’s grace, I intend to marinate in the presence of God through His Word and prevailing prayer. And keep looking up.

It’s always darkest before the dawn.