Here’s another daily meditation from my recent book of devotions ‘Sunrise Sunset’ (HarperCollins/Harper San Francisco). Feel free to use/adapt it. These appear regularly on our mail-list.

Shalom!
Rowland Croucher (‘servus servorum dei’; AMDG)

I will instruct you and teach you the way you should go; I will counsel you with my eye upon you. Psalm 32:8.

How can I know what God wants me to do?

The Scriptures assure us that we are not like rats in a maze. God wants us to know his will. Paul wrote to the Ephesian Christians and told them not to be fools, but to know the will of the Lord (Ephesians 5:17). He prays for the same wisdom for the Colossians (1:9, 10, cf. 4:12). You find God’s will by submitting to him. It works the same way in any relationship. As I and my wife ‘submit’ to one another, we learn more about each other’s ‘will’ and how to please each other.
John 7:17 gives us the basic principle here: ‘Anyone who resolves to do the will of God will know…’ Knowledge follows obedience.

Norman Vincent Peale recounts how his good friend (he had thousands of ‘good friends’!) J L Kraft makes decisions. ‘I pray hard and think hard. When the time is up and I must act, if I have done all the thinking and praying I can do, I say “Lord, show me the next thing to do”. I believe that the first idea that comes into my mind is the answer…’

May I not be like a stubborn mule, Lord, without understanding. May I know your way, and whether I know the reasons or not for being in that way, may I be willing to follow it in obedience to your will. Amen.