Seeking Guidance II – Spectacular Guidance

Ps. 18:28 For thou wilt light my candle: the Lord my God will enlighten my darkness (KJV)

Prov. 20:27 The spirit of man is the candle of the Lord, searching all the inward parts of the belly (KJV)

We established already in the last piece that the primary way by which God leads His people is through the inward witness – God’s Spirit bearing witness with your spirit. Sometimes, it looks so normal and ordinary that you may be tempted to take it for granted. In addition, as Kenneth E. Hagin said, “unless you keep a tender conscience, spiritual things will be indistinct to you.” The sure path to keeping a tender conscience is to ensure to avoid violating your conscience. If you however keep violating your conscience, your conscience will be seared, and you will get to the point where it will no longer a safe guide.

As I pointed out in the first part of this writing, there are more spectacular ways by which the Holy Spirit can choose to lead us. These include through the voice of the Holy Spirit, Visions, and prophecy. Although, these other ways seem to be more spectacular, bear in mind that the inward witness is just as supernatural as these other ways. What you will find however, is that people are seeking to be led more through spectacular guidance. The danger of this is that if you are seeking to receive guidance through any of the spectacular ways by all means, you stand the risk of falling into Satan’s trap of deception, because he has his ways of counterfeiting these spectacular ways in a manner as to mislead you. Remember that it is at the prerogative of God to determine how He wants to lead you per time, and you cannot determine what method He will use. You can only claim your right to His leading, and not the method by which He will do so.

Many people usually fall prey in a bid to seek spectacular guidance, and it almost seems like it is even more rampart with Africans, because of our cultural background and orientation. Even when we come into the Christian faith, we tend to expect God to operate in like manner as the African gods, in some spectacular fashion, as well as expect His guidance to be always as dramatic. We also unconsciously expect that the only sure way to get good guidance is to go seek through an intermediary. This is why it is not uncommon to see people seeking special prophets for direction, and solutions to the issues of life. None of these was ever God’s intention for the new creation. God wants to have a personal relationship with every one of His children, and provide a unique and customized guidance for you. You may seek wise counsel from someone you respect spiritually, but you should not look to man to receive God’s guidance because that would be unscriptural. Some Christians are not willing to take the responsibility of seeking God’s guidance for themselves, so they did rather look for an easy way out by seeking prophets, because it takes time and effort to develop spiritually.

God can choose to lead you through the more spectacular ways, but you should not personally seek it. As an aside, I have read from a couple of Christian authors that God tends to provide spectacular guidance where there may be rough sailing ahead, and such guidance is important to keep one steady when the rough sailing comes, and I very much agree with this position. Other than that, you can simply go by what you have in the inward witness. If God wills to lead you any other way, it will happen without your own personal effort. Your responsibility is to stay in the place where God can reach you at all times by whatever means He chooses. Lay claim to the word that you are God’s child, and should be led by His Spirit, and then leave it to the Holy Spirit to take it over from there. Do not seek spectacular guidance in any form or seek special prophets and the likes, rather, give God the opportunity to lead you as He wills.