God's Guidance

Five Ways God Guides You

God designed you with a purpose in mind. God loves you. He has a specific, unique and glorious destiny for you. He promises to guide you.

God’s purpose for you is bigger than your mistakes. I have made many mistakes in my life, but God has not stopped guiding me.

When we go on a journey by car we use a GPS. When we take a wrong turn, it reroutes us. But it never gives up until we reach our destination. You can ignore it or switch it off but if you follow it, it makes your journey more enjoyable and peaceful. Eventually, it will say ‘You have reached your destination.’

Of course, this is not a perfect analogy. God is not a machine but a person who is with us on the journey. God wants to communicate with you and has promised to guide you.

There are five main ways in which God guides us (the five CSs):

Commanding Scripture (the Bible)

Compelling Spirit (the Holy Spirit)

Counsel of the Saints (the church)

Common Sense (reason)

Circumstantial Signs (providence).

In each of today’s passages, we see first something general about the way in which God guides us, and then specific examples of each of these ‘five CSs’.

Promise of guidance

Psalm 48:9-14

God promises to guide us all the way through our lives: ‘he will be our guide even to the end’ (v.14). But how do you receive this guidance?

The secret is a close relationship with God. It involves spending time in his presence meditating on his ‘unfailing love’ (v.9).

Counsel of the Saints Guidance is not an individual activity. It is significant that the psalmist says, ‘Within your temple... we meditate on your unfailing love’ (v.9). The temple was where the people of God came together to worship God. We receive guidance in the context of community. On our own, we can sometimes get things very wrong (Proverbs 12:15). God can speak to others, as well as to us, and it is always wise to seek advice about major decisions.