Join us in this enlightening episode of the InTouch Podcast as we delve into finding clear guidance in our daily lives. Discover how the indwelling presence of the Holy Spirit offers us direction and why relying on worldly methods like throwing out a fleece or flipping a coin can lead us astray. Learn the value of utter dependence on persistent prayer, resting in God’s promises, and meditating on His Word to achieve clarity and purpose.
Welcome to the InTouch Podcast with Charles Stanley for Thursday, January 22nd. God desires for each of us to know Him deeply and follow Him faithfully. To gain practical insight and spiritual clarity, listen to part two of Finding Clear Guidance and discover how to walk closely with Him every day.
SPEAKER 02 :
How can I be sure I’m making the right decision? How can I be sure I have very clear guidance about this? How can I be sure I’m about to do the will of God? God has given to each one of His children the indwelling presence of the Holy Spirit. One of His primary responsibilities is to give us clear direction for our life. And this is why he says he will guide you into the truth, the truth of what God wants us to do in our life. So we have that wonderful privilege. Now the problem is that today people choose all kind of different ways of figuring out what they’re gonna do. For example, some say, well, what I’m gonna do is to find that clear direction. I’m gonna throw out a fleece like Gideon did. Well, a fleece was simply the wool covering of a lamb, a sheep. And here’s what he said. He said, now, Lord, I wanna be very sure I understand what you’re saying. And the truth is he knew what he was saying. He was afraid. And so all of us have probably been afraid at times in our life. It’s something God required of us. And so he said, here’s what I’m going to do. I’m going to take this fleece and I’m going to lay it on the threshold floor here. And if tomorrow morning when I get up, it’s wet and the ground is dry, I’ll know that I’ve heard you. Well, God in his patience said, okay. Next morning he wakes up. He wrings the water out of that fleece. And being natural and normal. This ought to be real encouraging to all of us. Real encouraging to us. You would have said, well, he would have said, okay, God, I’m going after the Midianites. He came back. He said, no, Lord, don’t get mad. Don’t get upset, Lord. Now, it’s not that I can hear him now. It’s not that I don’t believe you. It’s not that I don’t trust you. But tonight, I’m laying it out again. And tonight, I’m asking that the fleece be dry and the ground be wet. Next morning, I woke up. Fleece dry as gunpowder. Earth around it soaking wet. What did God do? He knew what Gideon needed, and he gave him very clear direction. You can go all the way through the Scripture. So somebody says now, well, that’s what I like doing. I like throwing out a fleece. Well, you know, if I really want to get something my way, I can throw that fleece so it lands the way I want it to land, which is not a very reliable way to do it. And that’s not a principle of Scripture, of finding clear direction. That’s what Gideon did. But nowhere else in the Bible do I find people doing that. And, of course, you remember that somebody else who wanted to play chance was Jonah. You know where that got him? It got him in the belly of a whale, so I suppose you’d not do that. So throwing out fleece and doing all those kind of things, that’s not God’s way of doing it. Somebody says, well, you know, every once in a while I just get in a tough spot and I flip a coin. Well, you know how reliable that is. Or some people say, well, what I do is I just, if I want a clear direction, I put down all the pros and all the cons. And if the pros outweigh the cons, that’s what I do. Well, you know what? The Bible says God’s way is not your ways. No, his thoughts, your thoughts. You know what? You can put down all the pros and all the cons you want to. That may not be what God’s saying at all. Because oftentimes what he wants is totally, totally may appear to us to be irrational when we think about it. Then there are those folks who are so foolish as to spend money on psychics, as if somebody out there can read God’s mind and give it to you when they don’t even claim to be Christians. Even if they were, you can’t trust that. None of that scripture, all of it is unreliable, untrustworthy, and the tragedy is that sometimes Christians who either don’t know how to find clear guidance or don’t got to have it now, or find themselves being drawn to the world’s ways, that’s the route they go, only to find they’ve made a horrible mistake. Well, is there a way? Yes, there is a way. Well, what is the first one? As I said, they’re very, very simple, but every single one of them is very important. Number one, and that is… persistence in prayer. Now, I didn’t say just pray, but persistence in prayer. Remember what Paul said when he said, for example, in Thessalonians, that fifth chapter, he said, pray without ceasing. That doesn’t mean you walk in all the time. Heavenly Father, thank you in Jesus’ name. Oh, yes, how are you doing? Praise the Lord, glory to God. That’s not what we’re talking about. But he was simply talking about simply this. Listen, when you’re praying about something, don’t let go of it. Don’t let go of whatever you’re praying for that you’re seeking. You’re trying to find clear guidance on whether it’s something you’re going to buy, something you’re going to wear, or somewhere you’re going, or your job, your major in school, whatever it might be. He says, pray without ceasing. Because here’s what happens. If you try to find clear guidance, except that running hither and yon, talking to this one, talking to the other one, and not get on your knees before God seeking the one who has absolute infinite wisdom, more than likely, most of the time, you’re going to make a wrong decision. And in big, critical, crucial decisions, you cannot afford to make a wrong decision. I think about young people growing up and they’re getting ready to go to college and, well, what are you going to major in? I don’t know. And I’m surprised over the years of folks who’ve said, well, I’m supposed to go to college and so I’m going. You don’t have any particular desire? Not really. Well, why are you going? Well, my parents said I ought to go to college and I guess from making the money in life ought to go to college. Now I think about what a terrible state of mind. Here’s a loving God who has chosen to show you, give you clear guidance for your life because he loves you unconditionally. He wants the best for your life. Then ask him. Ask the one who knows perfectly. When you come to these major decisions and you’ve got five alternatives or you have this strong desire over here and you’re really wanting to know what is the right thing to do. You get on your face before God, listen to what he says. And sometimes we need to put the emphasis where it belongs. Ask, and it shall be given. It will be given you. Seek, and you will find. Knock, and it will be opened unto you. For everyone who asks, receives. And he that seeks, findeth. And those who knock on the door, it’s going to be opened to them. He desires, he wishes, he wants, he has prepared to give you clear guidance in every single decision of your life. But if you don’t spend time praying, you see what happens is we get out and we pray a few days and we quit. You say, well, why can’t you just ask God and Him give it to you? What you have to ask is, what’s God’s goal? Listen, God’s goal in our life isn’t just giving me everything I want. God’s goal in our life is bringing us into the likeness of His Son. So what does He do? When He gets us in this decision-making process and here are alternatives. Or we have this desire, we really want to know… If this is of God or is it not? He uses that to draw us closer to himself, remind us of our dependence upon him. And listen, bringing us into a more intimate relationship with him. That’s what his goal is. In other words, he’s got all the information. In other words, think about it. Coming up with the right deal is no deal. That’s no challenge with God. In other words, he’s not trying to figure out now what’s the best thing to do for him or for her. God knows exactly what He wants to happen in your life. What He wants is He wants you and me to want Him. Not just be always with a handout. Well, give me this, give me that, show me this, show me that. I need this, I need that. Here’s my needs, here’s my wants, here’s my desires, here’s my goals, here’s my dreams. What about loving God? What about that? Isn’t that really superior to all these other things? Yes. So what does He do? He lets us pray and pray and pray till He has sifted us out until He has us where He wants us, till we’re willing to say, all right, Lord, whatever You want, what I want. It may not be my first choice, but if that’s what You know is best, that’s what I want. Listen, prayer is the heart and the core. If you really want to find clear direction and you don’t want to spend time on your knees, then do it yourself and get what yourself doing will get you. Then, for example, There’s a little phrase I want you to jot down if you will. That’s simply this. And that is to rest in God’s promises. Now watch this carefully. Rest in God’s promises. We’ve started off with the foundation, getting our heart cleaned out. We want to be patient. We want to check out the pressures that are coming our way. Absolutely for certain. We want to be alert to these pressures. We want to be prayerful. But we say rest in the promises of God. Think about this. You and I, here’s the most awesome resource there is. In fact, this book, which is the Word of God, has the answer to every single time I need clear direction. Here it is. You don’t have to go to the public library or the private library or anybody else’s library. You’ve got on your table by your bed, in your hand this morning, you have the ultimate, eternal, infallible, inerrant resource to know how God thinks, how He acts, how He works, His ways, His will, His plan, His direction, somewhere in the Word of God. You’ll be surprised how often you’ll find a situation in the life of one of God’s children that will be similar. Now, the circumstance won’t be the same, but it is similar. And you’ll say, well, how did God work in that situation? Well, Lord, how do you want to work in my situation? That’s the way we learn his ways. If you don’t know the ways of God, you don’t know how God thinks, you don’t know his principles, then how in the world are you going to come to God? And God’s not going to cut off the top of your head, pour the truth in, seal it back up and say, you got it. That’s not the way he operates. He operates gradually through prayer. Gradually through reading the Word. This is why I keep talking about meditating upon God’s Word. What are you doing? You’re just filling your mind with truth. Truth, for example, that you may read a passage that may be sort of meaningless to you today. Three months from now, you’ll come up to some decision and the Spirit of God will bring that verse to your mind and say, what was, oh, I know where that verse was. You go back and all of a sudden it comes off the page. This is God’s resource. We can learn His ways. And here’s what happens. When you and I begin to pray and we begin to search the Scripture, what does God’s Word do? God’s Word filters our thinking. Now think about this. You think about all the stuff that you heard in the past week. If you listen to the radio, if you read the newspapers, the magazines, and watch the TV, you think about all the stuff that came into your mind that absolutely is meaningless. You want to find the ways of God and the will of God? You want clear direction? You’ve got to sift all that junk out of your mind. And the best way to sift your mind is to get in the Word of God. And the Word of God just goes right through and cuts out all that stuff. And all of a sudden, you begin to think the way God thinks. You begin to sense God’s ways. You begin to say, this is what God is saying to me. If you allow yourself, if you allow your mind to be filled day after day after day after week after month after year after year, you will think the way the world thinks. You will respond the way the world responds. You will walk the way the world walks. You’ll end up the way the world ends up. How do you filter all of that out? With God’s Word. praying to Him, listening to Him, asking for guidance, asking for direction. And so what do we have? We have a mind. We have a grid system. And what you want to do is you want to build into that grid spiritual principles so that anything that comes your way that doesn’t fit that spiritual principle, the Spirit of God sets off the alarm in your conscience that says, that doesn’t fit who I am. That’s not what God wants. That’s not His direction for my life. When do you start building that grid system? A child begins to build that grid system, doesn’t even know he’s or she’s doing that at the very earliest stages of their life. What they hear their parents say, and parents, you are responsible for teaching your children how to filter that junk out of their minds so they can think holy thoughts and godly thoughts. Think of all the peer pressure they have to deal with. This is why you need to teach them. Every night before you go to bed, you get in the word of God. Let God filter out of your mind, out of your emotions, all the stuff that you’ve heard from your friends, all the pressure they put on you and all the things they think you should, ought, must do. Get rid of all that. That’s a good way to get rid of it. If you want clear guidance, you got to keep your mind filtered. You got to get all the contamination and the dirt and the filth of the world out of your mind so you can think the way God thinks. Now, let me just say this, that what happens is somebody says, well, now, wait a minute now, but suppose I don’t find that particular situation that best relates to me. Well, here’s what you do. If you don’t happen to find that, you just start looking for all the promises that God will give you direction. And for example, we said a few moments ago, he says, I will teach you in the way which you should go. I will guide you with my eye. In Psalm 32, verse 8, he said, I will guide you. So that’s just one. In all your ways, he says, acknowledge him, he’ll direct your path. So there are lots and lots of verses that assure us that God will give us clear direction. I may not find a passage that really fits exactly what’s going on, but there are so many promises of his clear direction for our life. And what’ll happen is this, when you begin to meditate on some of those verses, it’ll just be like God has tailored that verse just to fit you. That is the awesome miracle of this book. That’s the awesome miracle of this book. Listen, it will grab you, a verse will grab you and give you direction that you’ve read over and over and over again. And you come back and think, well, I never saw that before. You know why? You weren’t where you are. And therefore, this is a different situation, different circumstance, same word, same God who knew beforehand when you were going to get here and exactly when you were going to need it. Well, let’s just say there’s one other phrase I want to give you, and that is this simple phrase, wait for the peace. The word peace means to be bound together. Peace speaks of harmony and oneness. Not disharmony, not disorder, not unrest, frustration, anxiety, fear, all those things that do not meet what God is talking about here. That is, to make peace means to weave together. So what are we talking about? Listen and watch this. We’ve come from getting our pathway cleaned up. Backing off and waiting upon the Lord. Psalm 62, 5. My soul wait in silence upon God only. One of the key verses in my own life. Psalm 62, 5. My soul wait in silence. Not murmuring and fretting and fuming and criticizing and blaming. My soul wait in silence for God only. My expectation is from Him. So we wait. We avoid those pressures in life. No matter where they’re coming from and who they’re coming from, we absolutely refuse to accept those. We get on our face before Him. We become the resource of His promises. And now, what can we expect? Wait for the peace. Bound together. Here’s what happens. I want you to turn, if you will, to Colossians chapter 3, and look at this wonderful verse, verse 15. He says, Then he says, look at this. Let the word of Christ richly dwell within you with all wisdom, teaching and admonishing one another with psalms and hymns and spiritual songs, singing with thankfulness in your hearts to God. Look at verse 15. Let the peace of Christ rule in your heart. What does that mean? God’s peace is God’s umpire. in our life when we’re seeking clear direction. Let it rule. That is, when I come to a decision, is there harmony between what God is thinking and what I’m thinking? Has my decision and His mind, are they woven together so that now we’re thinking the same thing? Let peace rule. The disturbance is over. The turmoil is over. The uncertainty is over. All of that’s over. And now peace is ruling around. That is, it’s now I have very clear direction. And evidence of that clear direction is my circumstances may not have changed. People’s attitudes may not have changed. Pressures may still be there. But deep down inside, he’s told me exactly what to do. And that I am committed to no matter what. You know what can happen? You can walk through those difficult circumstances and trying times, and you can face all those alternative decisions, and you can come up with one that you’re absolutely certain because you have this inexpressible, inexplainable, undeniable, absolutely reliable, certain, sure promise from God. You got it from Him. This is His direction for your life at this time, in this question, in this decision. And that’s what a good God’s like. He’s just not going to leave it to us. He wants us to have peace. He wants us to have a sense of contentment. So we’re saying that the final phrase, the final phrase is look for the peace. That is, wait for the peace. In other words, you don’t move until you have clear direction. This is why Paul said, don’t be anxious about anything but in everything by prayer and supplication with thanksgiving. A whole lot goes on in that phrase. By prayer and supplication with thanksgiving, let your requests be made known to God and the peace of God, which is absolutely inexplainable, will garrison you about, protect you, give you harmony, sense of oneness. Listen, there is nothing in the world that exists to compare to this. And that is an awesome sense of oneness with God that is undisturbed, that is absolutely certain, that creates such wonderful harmony in your heart that no matter if the whole world falls apart around you, nothing can shake that. That’s what God’s after. He’s after to bringing us, and you see, we may start out here, but His goal is to bring us into such wonderful harmony and oneness with Him. Look, our mind fits His mind, and they go together. You know what? You’ll be so certain that you have clear direction. It doesn’t make any difference what you hear. what you see, what you feel out there. The thing that matters is you have the mind of God. That’s the promise. He says we have the mind of Christ. And how do we get it? We get our life cleaned up. We clean up the path. Back off and wait. My soul wait in silence and put God only because my expectations from him. I hear the pressure. I feel the pressure. I’m not giving in to the pressure. I’m just going to talk to the Father. I’m going to claim His promise. And I’m going to wait for the peace. And one thing for certain, there is no disappointment in Jesus Christ.
SPEAKER 01 :
Thank you for listening to part two of Finding Clear Guidance. If you’d like to know more about Charles Stanley or InTouch Ministries, stop by intouch.org. This podcast is a presentation of InTouch Ministries, Atlanta, Georgia.
