Wednesday Study Material
Jan 11, 2012
"Personal Direction and Guidance"
Trust in the Lord
Psalms 37:23; Proverbs 3:5 & 6
1. Who am I?
2. Where do I belong?
3. What am I suppose to do?
I. God can guide us in our everyday living.
In every decision, every action, in everything that develops in our lives, God will direct our paths.
1. "direct" in verse 6 God is the road builder and the maintenance chief. He is active in
our affairs.
We may not see the road builder and the maintenance chief during every mile traveled but we
do not move an inch without their help.
2. God goes with us. The God who can guide us does in fact, become personally involved with
us on every step of our journey.
Psalms 32:8, Psalm 48:14, Isaiah 58:11, John 16:13
II. God can guide, but three conditions determine His guidance.
1. "In all your ways, acknowledge Him". In all the steps of your journey, see that you
acknowledge God as your guide.
If not careful due to our preoccupation we may miss His guidance. So if we have God's
guidance, we must pay attention to Him with the sensitivity of a faith that is alive and
expectant, and not just in special moments of devotion and prayer.
2. "Trust in the Lord with all your heart". We must trust Him in the hour of need, and in
special need when there is no one else around to trust. We must trust Him when we are
called upon to do some unique assignment with which we feel insecure.
Take two Christians:
One copes with change smoothly, the other when facing any difficulty
seems to panic.
One seems to observer to have made it through so easy. The other made
it but by the barest of margins.
What's the difference?
One is stable, acknowledging God in all His ways. The other is unstable
"double-minded" because he does not acknowledge God in all His ways.
3. "Lean not to your own understanding". This condition suggests the absolute inadequacy of
life without God's guidance. We really can't make it on our journey without Him, and some
people pay an unnecessarily high price to learn that self-management leads to endless defeat.
Example: Abraham and Sarah Genesis 16 - 22
God wants to give us His guidance. He knows our need for it, and He knows our failure without it. But He also knows our capacity to follow His direction. God has a unique plan for each of us, and He waits for us to pay attention to Him, to trust Him with the whole heart, to reject our own abilities to guide ourselves. God can and will guide us when we trust Him.
Psalm 37:3 - 5 NLT Proverbs 22:19 Jeremiah 9:23-24 1 Chronicles 28:9 Proverbs 16:3 Philippians 4:6 James 1:1-7 Isaiah 26:1-19 Key on 3-7