Today's Devotional

April 6, 2005

Subject:  Follow Or Lead

Psalms 139:10 - "Even there shall thy hand lead me, and thy right hand shall hold me."

Psalms 139:23 - 24 "Search me, O God, and know my heart: try me, and know my thoughts:  And see if there be any wicked way in me, and lead me in the way everlasting."

I remember a song by a Christian group with the following words, "wherever I go, let your Spirit, follow me."  I always wondered why they chose to use the word "follow" instead of "lead" in that verse.   Perhaps that's mainly because of the way I view life.  My prayer is always, Lord please lead me because I want Him to place me where He wants me.  However with that as my prayer, sometimes I wonder how I get into things.  Did God lead me there or did He follow as I went there?  I think we need to be able to differentiate each case.

Leading - this happens when we've clearly heard from God and we know without a doubt that this is where He wants us.  I've had a couple of these situations in life where I knew without a doubt that I was in the right place by God, but sometimes bad things happened.  Does that mean that God wasn't leading?  No it simply means that God wanted me there.  I've personally shared the pain of divorce, financial hardship and physical pain and even in some of the toughest times, I knew that I was right where God wanted me.

Following - this happens when we decide that we're going to do something and either we haven't checked with God or we're not really sure but we do it anyway.  Understand though that when we're not really sure, that doesn't mean that we'll always be wrong in doing what we're doing.  Sometimes though, we can "guess" wrong and end up in situations where we shouldn't be.  In those cases, if we have prayed for God's direction and for some reason heard incorrectly, He "fixes" it.  Remember, God is a God of the heart and when our heart is right, He makes it work out for His purposes.  I've experienced this too.  I've wound up in places that I realized much later that God didn't take me to.  However, He pulled me out of those places and used them as learning experiences.

So today we should try to always be lead by the Spirit.  That will happen when we get our hearts set on Him.   As the scripture in Galatians 5 says, "walk in the Spirit.."  When we do that He's always leading us.  Then we can change the words of that song to read, "wherever I go, let your Spirit, lead me."   

Carlen