Elisabeth Elliot - Seeking Gods Guidance: A Guided Journey for Discovering Gods Will for Your Life

I have found in the Bible plenty of evidence that God has guided people. I find, too, assurance that he is willing to guide me. He has been at it for a long time. His hand reaches toward me. I have only to take it....

This is a book about the guidance of God, but it is not six easy lessons on how to get it. It is a collection of observations from personal experience and from the Bible on why and how God does, in fact, guide his children.

Elisabeth Elliot

Also by Elisabeth Elliot

Through Gates of Splendor

Shadow of the Almighty

Let Me Be a Woman

A Chance to Die

Discipline: The Glad Surrender

A Path Through Suffering

On Asking God Why

Passion and Purity

The Shaping of a Christian Family

Keep a Quiet Heart

The Mark of a Man

The Journals of Jim Elliot

Quest for Love

Be Still My Soul

Faith That Does Not Falter

Guided by His Promises

No Graven Image

The Path of Loneliness

Secure in the Everlasting Arms

Made for the Journey

1973, 1992, 1997 by Elisabeth Elliot

Published by Revell

a division of Baker Publishing Group

PO Box 6287, Grand Rapids, MI 49516-6287

www.revellbooks.com

Repackaged edition published 2019

Ebook edition created 2021

Previously published by Word Books in 1973 under the title A Slow and Certain Light and by Revell books in 1997 under the title Gods Guidance

All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any meansfor example, electronic, photocopy, recordingwithout the prior written permission of the publisher. The only exception is brief quotations in printed reviews.

Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data is on file at the Library of Congress, Washington, DC.

ISBN 978-1-4934-3451-0

Unless otherwise identified, Scripture is from the King James Version of the Bible.

Scripture identified NEB is from the The New English Bible. Copyright 1961, 1970, 1989 by the Delegates of the Oxford University Press and The Syndics of the Cambridge University Press. Reprinted by permission.

Scripture identified NIV is from the HOLY BIBLE, NEW INTERNATIONAL VERSION. NIV. Copyright 1973, 1978, 1984 by International Bible Society. Used by permission of Zondervan. All rights reserved.

Scripture identified NKJV is from the New King James Version. Copyright 1982 by Thomas Nelson, Inc. Used by permission. All rights reserved.

Scripture identified PHILLIPS is from The New Testament in Modern English, revised, editionJ. B. Phillips 1958, 1960, 1972. Used by permission of Macmillan Publishing Co., Inc.

Scripture identified RSV is from the Revised Standard Version of the Bible, copyright 1952 [2nd edition, 1971] by the Division of Christian Education of the National Council of the Churches of Christ in the United States of America. Used by permission. All rights reserved.

While corn is springing from the earth above,

what lies beneath is raked over like a fire,

and out of its rocks comes lapis lazuli,

dusted with flecks of gold.

No bird of prey knows the way there,

and the falcons keen eye cannot descry it....

Where then does wisdom come from,

and where is the source of understanding?...

God understands the way to it,

he alone knows its source;

for he can see to the ends of the earth

and he surveys everything under heaven.

Job 28:57, 20, 2324 NEB

If any man will do his will, he shall know....

John 7:17

To Van

(Eleanor C. Vandevort)

who has been
a witness to my life
and who once told me that
following God is not
like walking a tightrope

Contents

Introduction

T he desire for instant advice is not new. Sorcerers, magicians, wise men, oracles, witch doctors, palmists, shamans, astrologers, and fortune-tellers of all kinds have always been in business. The continuing sale of books and magazines on horoscopy and astrology and the growth of professional counseling and guidance services (not to mention computer dating agencies) indicate that although more education for more people is available than ever before, the majority seem to feel no more confident than they have ever felt of their ability to make decisions by themselves. A man who is ready enough to call himself an agnostic or even an atheist may show an interest in the influence of the stars, in spiritism, or in flipping a cointhings that are really a dead giveaway of his awareness of sources of power, knowledge, or control that are outside himself.

For the Christian there is a single source. It is God who is in charge of things, from stars to coins (though many would be slow to say that God has anything to do with heads or tails). It is reasonable for a Christian to go to God for help. Peter, a man not noted for steadfast faith, cried out, Lord, save me, when he found himself sinking in the sea. And the Lord immediately stretched out a hand to help. It was an instant solution to the problem of the moment, which is exactly what we usually want.

This is a book about the guidance of God, but it is not six easy lessons on how to get it. It is a collection of observations from personal experience and from the Bible on why and how God does, in fact, guide his children.

Advice is a commodity we suddenly need and set out to get. We might spend a few dollars for a magazine, or a few dollars to have our tea leaves read, with the attitude, Oh, well, it might work. What can I lose? If we like what we hear, we can follow the advice. If not, we reject it. We might get the advice of friends without having to pay for it, and when we are in serious difficulty we may be willing to pay a great deal for professional advice. The higher the fee, the more concerned we will be to ascertain the qualifications of the source we are consulting. Is it trustworthy? But ours is still the choicewe can take it or leave it, according to our inclinations.

The Christian does not come to God for advice. He comes asking for Gods will and, in the truest sense, there is no option here. Once it is known, it must be done. Whoever knows what is right to do and fails to do it, for him it is sin.

Gods fee may be a higher one than we are prepared to payit may cost everything. Anybody who honestly intends to follow will certainly be asked to deny himself. A wealthy young man once came to Jesus full of good intentions, but they were shortlived. He went away sorrowful because Jesus had asked him to sell everything he owned. That was too much.

To ask for the guidance of God is to make a choice, and this takes faith. It must be faith of a far higher kind than the breezy If I like what I see Ill take it. It is the faith that has strength to wait for the rewards God holds, strength to believe they are worth waiting for, worth the price asked. Our prayers for guidance (or for anything else) really begin here: I trust him. This requires abandonment. We are no longer saying, If I trust him, hell give me such and such, but, I trust him. Let him give me or withhold from me what he chooses.

Nothing I have to say here is new. It is a well-worn path that thousands have traveled; but I have written down in very simple terms what I have seen on the way, hoping that one more witness will be an encouragement to some who even in the 1990s believe there is a God who can lighten our darkness.