If I have discussed one concept more than any other with both Christians and non-Christians, it is the idea of being guided by God. Christians will speak of it in questions like “how do I know what is God’s plan for my life.” Non-Christians will talk about trying to figure out how to know what are the best decisions about the future. Both are discussing the same thing….understanding direction. We want a plan. Actually, I think at one level, we want someone to GIVE US a plan—that way, if it doesn’t work out, we have someone to blame.
Looking for guidance is a very human thing. I would say that I have desired a mentor or guide for all of my life. I had my parents, and my father remains a wonderful counselor to whom I turn often. Yet, I wanted to hear direction from others, particularly from someone who I perceived to be “ahead of me” in terms of age and of success. I have been blessed over the past decade to have such a person and I cherish him greatly for this place in my life.
But this mentor is wise enough to know that he can’t really tell me what steps to take. So, frustratingly, I often wonder about direction or guidance or path. I’ve written several songs about this feeling, this haunting question of being on the right path. And, I’ve talked and taught many others about the lessons I have learned. It is not an easy journey, particularly for Christians who believe that one of God’s key purposes is to guide us.
And He does….just not exactly in the method we would want. C.S. Lewis in The Screwtape Letters touches on this point. Check this out:
And that is where the troughs come in. You must have often wondered why the Enemy [God] does not make more use of His power to be sensibly present to human souls in any degree He chooses and at any moment. But you now see that the Irresistible and the Indisputable are the two weapons which the very nature of His scheme forbids Him to use. Merely to over-ride a human will (as His felt presence in any but the faintest and most mitigated degree would certainly do) would be for Him useless. He cannot ravish. He can only woo. For His ignoble idea is to eat the cake and have it; the creatures are to be one with Him, but yet themselves; merely to cancel them, or assimilate them, will not serve. He is prepared to do a little overriding at the beginning. He will set them off with communications of His presence which, though faint, seem great to them, with emotional sweetness, and easy conquest over temptation. But He never allows this state of affairs to last long. Sooner or later He withdraws, if not in fact, at least from their conscious experience, all those supports and incentives. He leaves the creature to stand up on its own legs – to carry out from the will alone duties which have lost all relish. It is during such trough periods, much more than during the peak periods, that it is growing into the sort of creature He wants it to be. Hence the prayers offered in the state of dryness are those which please Him best. We can drag our patients along by continual tempting, because we design them only for the table, and the more their will is interfered with the better. He cannot “tempt” to virtue as we do to vice. He wants them to learn to walk and must therefore take away His hand; and if only the will to walk is really there He is pleased even with their stumbles. Do not be deceived, Wormwood. Our cause [of evil] is never more in danger, than when a human, no longer desiring, but intending, to do our Enemy’s will, looks round upon a universe from which every trace of Him seems to have vanished, and asks why he has been forsaken, and still obeys.
BAM! God wants us to learn to walk on our own and yet, in walking, to remain obedient to His call, to His guidance. Did you catch the early part where Lewis explains that God will not overpower our free will? In his other work, God in the Dock, Lewis said “God has made a rule for Himself that He won’t alter people’s character by force. He can and will alter them–but only if the people will let him.” Right on the money….God does not want robots with Him simply because they are forced to. He wants instead real relationship.
Next time you feel quite unsure of the next step on your journey, when you think perhaps it is far too silent. When you wish the directions were more verbal, more open…remember that in the silence God still guides. You are not alone and as you bravely step forward, you can know that you are growing stronger with each step.