(1) That you recognize your own ignorance and your own inability to guide your own life—that you lack wisdom.
(2) The surrender of your will to God, and a real desire to be led by Him.
(3) Definite prayer to Him for guidance.
(4) Confident expectation that God will guide you. You “ask in faith, nothing doubting.”
(5) That you follow step by step as He guides. God may only show you a step at a time. That is enough. All you need to know is the next step. It is here that many make a mistake. They wish God to show them the whole way before they take the first step. A university student once came to me over the question of guidance. He said, “I cannot find out the will of God. I have been praying but God does not show me His will.” This was in the month of July. I said, “About what is it that you are seeking to know the will of God?” “About what I should do next summer.” I said, “Do you know what you ought to do to-morrow?” “Yes.” “Do you not know what you ought to do next autumn?” “Yes, finish my course. But what I want to know is what I ought to do when my university course is over.” He was soon led to see that all he needed to know for the present was what God had already shown him. That when he did that, God would show him the next step. Do not worry about what you ought to do next week. Do what God shows you you ought to do to-day. Next week will take care of itself. Indeed, to-morrow will take care of itself. Obey the Spirit of God for to-day. “Be not therefore anxious for the morrow; for the morrow will be anxious for the things of itself. Sufficient unto the day is the evil thereof” (Matt. 6: 34, R. V.). It is enough to live a day at a time, if we do our very best for that day.
God’s guidance is clear guidance, “God is light and in Him is no darkness at all” (1 John 1: 5). Do not be anxious over obscure leadings. Do not let your soul be ruffled by the thought, “Perhaps this obscure leading is what God wants me to do.” Obscure leadings are not divine leadings. God’s path is as clear as day. Satan’s path is full of obscurity and uncertainty and anxiety and questioning. If there comes some leading of which you are not quite sure whether it is the will of God or not, simply go to your Heavenly Father and say, “Heavenly Father, I desire to know Thy will. I will do Thy will if Thou wilt make it clear. But Thou art light and in Thee is no darkness at all. If this is Thy will make it clear as day and I will do it.” Then wait quietly upon God and do not act until God makes it clear, but the moment it is made clear, act at once.
The whole secret of guidance is an absolutely surrendered will, a will that is given up to God and ready to obey Him at any cost. Many of our uncertainties about God’s guidance are simply because we are not really willing to do what God is really guiding us to do. We are tempted to say, “I cannot find out what God’s will is,” when the real trouble is we have found out His will and it is something we do not wish to do and we are trying to make ourselves think that God wants us to do something else.
All supposed leadings of God should be tested by the Word of God. The Bible is God’s revealed will. Any leading that contradicts the plain teaching of the Bible is certainly not the leading of the Holy Spirit. The Holy Spirit does not contradict Himself. A man once came to me and said that God was leading him to marry a certain woman. He said that she was a very devoted Christian woman and they had been greatly drawn towards one another and they felt that God was leading them to be married. But I said to the man, “You already have a wife.” “Yes,” he said, “but we have never lived happily and we have not lived together for years.” “But,” I replied, “that does not alter the case. God in His Word has told us distinctly the duty of the husband to the wife and how wrong it is in His sight for a husband to divorce his wife and marry another.” “Yes,” said the man, “but the Holy Spirit is leading us to one another.” I indignantly replied that “Whatever spirit is leading you to marry one another, it is certainly not the Holy Spirit but the spirit of the evil one. The Holy Spirit never leads any one to disobey the Word of God.”
In seeking to know the guidance of the Spirit always search the Scriptures, study them prayerfully. Do not make a book of magic out of the Bible. Do not ask God to show you His will and then open your Bible at random and put your finger upon some text and take it out of its connection without any relation to its real meaning and decide the will of God in that way. This is an irreverent and improper use of Scripture. You may open your Bible at just the right place to find right guidance, but if you do, it will not be by some fanciful interpretation of the passage you find. It will be by taking the passage in its context and interpreting it to mean just what it says as seen in its context. All sorts of mischief has arisen from using the Bible in this perverse way. I knew an earnest Christian woman once who was somewhat concerned about the predictions made by a false prophetess that Chicago was to be destroyed on a certain day. She opened her Bible at random. It opened to the twelfth chapter of Ezekiel, “Son of man, eat thy bread with quaking, and drink thy water with trembling and with carefulness.… And the cities that are inhabited shall be laid waste, and the land shall be desolate” (Ezek. 12: 18, 20). Now this seemed to exactly fit the case and the woman was considerably impressed, but if the verses had been studied in their connection, it would have been evident at once that God was not speaking about Chicago and that they were not applicable to Chicago. It was not an intelligent study of the Word of God and therefore led to a false conclusion.
To sum up, lead a life not led by rules but by the personal guidance of the Holy Spirit. Surrender your will absolutely to God. Whenever you are in doubt as to His guidance, go to Him and ask Him to show you His will, expect Him to do it, follow step by step as He leads. Test all the leadings by the plain and simple teachings of the Bible. Live free from anxiety and worry lest in some unguarded moment you have not done the right thing.