On God’s Guidance

“Shepherd, Lead Me” (by John Frye)

How God guides us is a beautiful mystery. I grew up under the pressing fundamentalist question: “What is God’s will for your life?” In youth group and summer camp I was repeatedly taught and urged to follow clear steps and biblical guidelines so that I could know God’s will. God’s will was this thing like a scheduled train; if you missed it, it was gone forever with a nod toward Walker Percy’s question: “What if you missed your life like a person misses a train?” The stress of it all turned will-of-God-vigilance into sheer panic. I know a grown man who I believe has spent his life trying to make up for “missing” the alleged train of God’s will. Sad.

Years later I was working as an orderly in a small Dallas hospital waiting for my first year of seminary to start. That summer I read Monganga Paul –a book about the life and ministry of Dr. Paul Carlson written by his widow Lois. I felt a strong urge to by-pass seminary and apply to a huge medical school in Dallas. I envisioned going to the mission field as a doctor to carry on Paul Carlson’s work. Was this God’s will?

One evening while I was working in the ER, a very attractive woman was brought in with a gash on her forehead, bleeding lip, scraped knees and torn dress. She was crying. I watched as the doctor attended to her wounds. The doctor needed to leave for a moment and he told me to stay with the lady. She was still sobbing. I felt awkward. I asked her if she was crying because of the pain. Through her sobs, she cried, “Noooo. I am just afraid of what he is doing to my children!” She said that she and her partner were at a bar. They got in a fight in the parking lot. He hit her hard and threw her to the pavement and drove away. Others found her and brought her to the hospital. The doctor came back in, stitched the gash in her head, cleaned up the other abrasions and released her.

I saw real pain on two levels. I saw the physical damage; it had to hurt. I heard the woman’s convulsive groans. She was deeply hurting, but not because of the bodily harm to her. She was torn apart by imagining the ugly damage that her angry man might be inflicting on her kids. The doctor did not care about that story; he was there to attend to her body so I don’t fault him. In stunned reflection, I felt God was asking me, “Who will care about the gashes in her soul? Who will attend to the pain of a frightened mother’s heart?”  That event in 1971 on a dark Dallas night is still very vivid to me. The God Who guides met me in the ER and pointed me strongly toward seminary. I would not train to be a medical doctor; I was directed to train as a pastor.

Guidance is a mysterious adventure. Let’s pay sharp attention to the moment. Let’s be fully present in our now. God does not guide by magic formula, sacred prescription or bullhorn. God guides organically using all of life—truth of creation (world around us) and truth by revelation (Word for us) within loving, flexible relationships. Lord Christ, give us ears to hear and eyes to see.