Knowing God: Chapter 20 - Thou Our Guide

In chapter 20 of Knowing God we hear of how God guides us in knowing and doing His will in our lives. I find this tends to be one of the greatest struggles and perplexing aspects of life for many Christians.

God’s Guidance: True and Real

Dr. Packer first points out that divine guidance is a true and real thing that rests on two foundational facts: “first, the reality of God’s plan for us; second, the ability of God to communicate with us.” So logically and philosophically it makes sound sense to confidently believe that God does guide us. And as Dr. Packer notes, “wisdom in Scripture always means knowledge of the course of action that will please God and secure life.”  (cf. Prov 3:5-6; Jam 1:5; Rom 12:1-2)

The Role of the Holy Spirit

Further, “Christians have an in dwelling Instructor, the Holy Spirit” (1 Jn 2:20, 27), who guides us such that “God seeks his glory in our lives, and he is glorified in us only when we obey his will.” As Psalm 23:3 notes, “he guides me in paths of righteousness for his own name’s sake.”

But Dr. Packer gives a word of warning in regards to people’s misunderstanding and misapplication of the guidance of the Holy Spirit: “Their basic mistake is to think of guidance as essentially inward prompting by the Holy Spirit, apart from the written Word.” This mistake typically derives from how we make “vocational choices”, by which is meant “choices...between competing options, all of which in themselves appear lawful and good.” That is, “vocational choices” are not merely about jobs but about all aspects of life that present options in which there is not “a direct [decisive] application of biblical teaching.” While their are many decisions, some quite significant, in life that fall into this category of “vocational choices” and “the idea of a life in which the inward voice of the Spirit decides and directs everything sounds most attractive, for it seems to exalt the Spirit’s ministry and to promise the closest intimacy with God...in practice this quest for superspirituality leads only to frantic bewilderment or lunacy.” Rather, “the fundamental mode whereby our rational Creator guides his rational creatures is by rational understanding and application of his written Word.”

“...the true way to honor the Holy Spirit as our guide is to honor the holy Scriptures through which he guides us. The fundamental guidance which God gives to shape our lives—the instilling, that is, of the basic convictions, attitudes, ideals, and value judgments, in terms of which we are to live—is not a matter of inward promptings apart from the Word but of the pressure on our consciences of the portrayal of God’s character and will in the Word, which the Spirit enlightens us to understand and apply to ourselves. The basic form of divine guidance, therefore, is the presentation to us of positive ideals as guidelines for all our living.” (Psa 23:3; 34:14; 37:27)

Six (6) Common Mistakes

Dr. Packer identifies six (6) common pitfalls in how we discern and decide on these “vocational choices”:

1. ”Unwillingness to think” (Deut 32:29)
2. “Unwillingness to think ahead” (Deut 32:29)
3. “Unwillingness to take advice” (Prov 12:15)
4. “Unwillingness to suspect oneself” (Psa 139:23-24)...“We can never distrust ourselves too much.”
5. “Unwillingness to discount personal magnetism” (1 Thes 5:21) [“Wisdom” from people with attractive, magnetic personalities can easily fool us.]
6. “Unwillingness to wait” (Isa 40:30-31)

Discerning the Significance of Trouble and Mistakes

Dr. Packer closes with two words that double as encouragement and admonition. 

1.  Difficulty of circumstances and suffering are no clear indication of God’s will. While “trouble should always be treated as a call to consider one’s way [our own awareness of our falleness should alert us to this]...it is not necessarily a sign of being off track; for as the Bible declares in general that ‘many are the afflictions of the righteous’ (Ps 34:19).” As Dr. Packer notes, “Sooner or later, God’s guidance, which brings us out of darkness into light, will also bring us out of light into darkness. It is part of the way of the cross.”
2. Missing God’s guidance in a decision or area of our lives need not be fatal to following God’s will for the rest of our lives: “Our God is a God who not merely restores, but takes up our mistakes and follies into his plans for us and brings good out of them...Guidance, like all God’s acts of blessing under the covenant of grace, is a sovereign act...the right context for discussing guidance is one of confidence in the God who will not let us ruin our souls.”