Many of us are like this in life. We charge off in a hurry. We don’t realise the importance of getting good directions for life. If you follow God’s directions for life, you will enjoy his blessing and bring blessing to others.
When embarking on a journey the best time to get good directions is before you begin.
There is something special about beginning your day by laying your requests before God. The whole day has a different dimension as you ‘wait in expectation’
What I love more than anything when I set out on a long journey, is to have someone with me who knows the directions and will tell me, one step at a time, where I should go. There are some general directions that apply to every journey. They are the rules. Jesus’ directions in are like a ‘highway code’ for a life of blessing. Following Jesus’ directions involves a radical lifestyle. He challenges us to be ruthless in dealing with every wrong attitude, thought, word and action. In the journey of life God offers to accompany you and direct you one step at a time into a life of blessing. Our words should be words of blessing, not anger. We must not speak angry words against our brothers and sisters.
We need to guard what we do with our eyes and our heart. If we allow them to become corrupted then, far from being a blessing to others, we will be rotten ourselves.
We are to live lives of radical integrity in which we say what we mean, and mean what we say: ‘Simply let your “Yes” be “Yes”, and your “No”, “No”; anything beyond this comes from the evil one’
Blessing others means blessing even those who do bad things to us. ‘Don’t hit back at all… No more tit-for-tat stuff. Live generously’ . To return evil for good is demonic. To return good for good is human. To return good for evil is the way of Jesus.
This has been my experience in life. God may give us a general picture of what he wants us to do – but as far as the details are concerned he leads us one step at a time. The life of faith involves following his directions one step at a time.
The journey is not always entirely smooth.
‘Instead of becoming discouraged, depressed or angry when people disappoint us, God wants us to lift up our eyes, look around, and trust him to lead us into an even better situation. He wants us to look around and count our blessings instead of focusing on what we do not have. He wants us to fix our eyes on him, not on the work of the enemy, because he has plans to bless us.’ You are called to live under God’s blessing and bring blessing to those around you.
We all need guidance every day in all the difficult decisions of life. Following a straight path saves us wandering off wasting time and energy
‘Lead me, O Lord, in your righteousness… make straight your way before me’ (Psalm 5:8).
