How Does God Guide Us? Personal Stories and Testimonies

When I was in high school my youth pastor encouraged me to go into pastoral ministry. After I was done laughing he said that I should pray about it. So, Ip rayed once, very quickly: "God, if you want me to be a minister, you gotta convict me really bad becasue I don't want to be a minister." About a year later during the summer between my senior year of high school and college, I went on a summer retreat for high school students. Three years earlier, at the same retreat i became a Christian.

Last year my wife and I went on holiday to Lebanon. I know it doesn't sound like your typical holiday destination, but it was fantastic - partly because we have relatives there. We were based at Tyre in the South, but wanted to see the country a bit. Public transportation in Lebanon is interesting, mainly privately owned mini-buses and taxis. The minibuses run regular routes, stopping and picking up anyone who flags them down on the way. One place we really wanted to visit was Baalbek - a huge historic site with amazingly preserved Roman temples which also happened to be Hez-Bola HQ. We got a mini-bus from Tyre to Beirut. In Tyre we were led by the hand several hundred yards to another bus - our "guide" explained to the driver where we were heading - and that was it! On the way back it was the same. The problem was - all the communication was done in Arabic and we don't speak any Arabic. When we got back people asked us whether we felt in danger - they could have taken you anywhere. Our response was no. At no point did we really feel at risk - the people were lovely and very friendly to us wherever we went. We trusted them. When we come to thinking about God leading and guiding us - the key question is can we, and do we trust him? Well the Bible gives us good reason to trust him.

When I was a child, I used to love sitting in the drivers seat playing with the steering wheel when the car was stationary. My father would never have let me do that if the car was actually moving. The consequences would have been catastrophic as my tugging on the steering wheel would actually have changed the direction of the car. If we are expecting God to be in the driving seat of our life and to guide us, we need to take our responsibility to try and follow him and do what we know he has asked us to do seriously. There is no point of God tugging on the steering wheel if we are not going anywhere. We need to trust him to direct us as we listen to the Bible, seek to discern what the Spirit is saying to us, use our common sense and listen to others advice.