The Roadmap for Life
All throughout life we seek direction. Your parents gave you directions and guidance from the moment they brought you home from the hospital, sometimes even well into adulthood. Teachers and coaches give direction. Bosses give direction. Pastors give direction. If you are traveling, you input your destination into your navigational app or device. Or if you are old school, you look at a roadmap.
There are an endless number of books that provide guidance on just about anything you need help with. I recently was at a local bookstore and right there on display, “Sex for Dummies, 4th Edition.” Really? We need a book for that? And does the 4th edition unveil newly discovered intimacy secrets that the previous three editions were unaware of??
Google any topic and you will probably find many websites claiming to offer insight and direction into just about any subject you can imagine. And we all know that if it is found on the Internet, then it is completely reliable.
Sometimes the direction and guidance we get is solicited, other times, we get it without even asking for it. Some people are just lifelong “advice-givers.” Know anyone like that? Are you one of those people?
Regardless of the source of the direction or advice given to us, sometimes it is flawed, short-sided, done so with selfish motives, or just downright bad advice. Sometimes what appeared to be good advice ends up being not so good. There are also times we choose to ignore the advice of others. For good reason, these days we are suspicious of most advice, and we don’t always trust the advice we are given, even from reliable sources.
On the other hand, when you go to God for His direction, you can trust the answer 100% of the time. In order for you to hear God’s direction, you need to surrender your heart to seeking His ways not your ways (James 4:3), you need ask according to His will (1 John 5:14-15), and often times, you simply need to wait for His answer (Isaiah 64:4).
Scripture is full of verses that make it clear that God desires to give us His plan, His direction for our lives. In Psalm 32:8 we find this – “I will instruct you and teach you in the way you should go; I will counsel you with my eye upon you.”
Think of a time when someone did not heed your advice. Think of the consequences, knowing that things could have been different for them if only they had listened to you. When we turn our backs on God and ignore the plans He desires for us, we also often face consequences. The prophet Isaiah, speaking on behalf of the Lord, says this to disobedient Israel – “I am the Lord your God, who teaches you what is best for you, who directs you in the way you should go. If only you had paid attention to my commands, your peace would have been like a river, your well-being like the waves of the sea” (48:17b-18).
We find this in Isaiah 55:9-11 – “For my thoughts are not your thoughts, neither are your ways my ways, declares the LORD. For as the heavens are higher than the earth, so are my ways higher than your ways and my thoughts than your thoughts. “For as the rain and the snow come down from heaven and do not return there but water the earth, making it bring forth and sprout, giving seed to the sower and bread to the eater, so shall my word be that goes out from my mouth; it shall not return to me empty, but it shall accomplish that which I purpose, and shall succeed in the thing for which I sent it.’”
God’s Word, His wisdom, is our unrivaled and unfailing roadmap for life.
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