In the way... you should go.

Dear Friends,

I don't know about you, but there are days when I really do not understand why God does what He does in the manner in which He does it. So, when I find myself desiring that wisdom, I have to look to scripture to find it.

Recently, I have started a friendship with someone. Like really recent, like last week. Yet, the Lord has led that person away. Although I don't quite understand, I know that God has it in control. But honestly, my heart would LOVE to know why.

 So, in efforts to find consolation, I searched the scriptures. This is what I've found;

who went before you in the way to seek you out a place to pitch your tents, in fire by night and in the cloud by day, to show you by what way you should go. (Deuteronomy 1:33, ESV)

 God, the same one who revealed himself to Moses in the burning bush, reveals himself to the children of Israel in a pillar of fire by day and cloud by night. Notice it says " who went before you in the way to seek you out a place to pitch your tents.." Directing either large groups of people (the Children of Israel) or individuals, God went before them. I don't know about you, but I would rather follow someone who has been there before. Praise the LORD he has been there before!

I will instruct you and teach you in the way you should go;

I will counsel you with my eye upon you. (Psalm 32:8, ESV)

 God personally teaches us, through the Holy Spirit. Step by step (day by day....you know you just sang that!) God directs each one. In the midst of each step there is something that He is teaching us before we take the next one.

Thus says the Lord,

your Redeemer, the Holy One of Israel:

“I am the Lord your God,

who teaches you to profit,

who leads you in the way you should go.(Isaiah 48:17, ESV)

 "...who leads you in the way you should go." An accurate picture of this would be a baby just learning how to walk. No one can expect a baby to just get up and walk one day. There is a sense in which God is our stability. Our legs are not strong enough to hold our weight. But constantly leaning on him and being led by him is the way we learn to walk in his way.

Let me hear in the morning of your steadfast love,

for in you I trust.

Make me know the way I should go,

for to you I lift up my soul. (Psalm 143:8, ESV)

 This is why we ask God for discernment when we are making decisions!  We do not know the next step.  When we do, it is because we need to know it. One of my favorite authors has a quote that falls in line with this thought. "God has promised to supply all our needs. What we don't have now, we don't need now."- Elisabeth Elliot

They refused to obey and were not mindful of the wonders that you performed among them, but they stiffened their neck and appointed a leader to return to their slavery in Egypt. But you are a God ready to forgive, gracious and merciful, slow to anger and abounding in steadfast love, and did not forsake them. Even when they had made for themselves a golden calf and said, ‘This is your God who brought you up out of Egypt,’ and had committed great blasphemies, you in your great mercies did not forsake them in the wilderness. The pillar of cloud to lead them in the way did not depart from them by day, nor the pillar of fire by night to light for them the way by which they should go. You gave your good Spirit to instruct them and did not withhold your manna from their mouth and gave them water for their thirst. Forty years you sustained them in the wilderness, and they lacked nothing. Their clothes did not wear out and their feet did not swell. (Nehemiah 9:17-21, ESV) 

Now, out of all the scriptures I've seen on this topic, I like this one the most. Can you see the goodness of God here? "..But you are a God ready to forgive, gracious and merciful, slow to anger and abounding in steadfast love, and did not forsake them." "you in your great mercies did not forsake them in the wilderness..." Friend, although this life has a lot of questions, and gray areas that we have to navigate through, remember this.. He sustains you. He gives you the very breath you have every single day. There will be hard decisions needing to be made, there will be difficult circumstances, but leaning on and learning from God is the best plan you could ever make. 

Learning, Leaning, and being Led,