My sisters and I have often used the line, “I just wish God would leave a note on the counter and tell me what to do.”  As a matter of fact, just last week I had decisions, choices to make, and I was hoping to wake up in the morning and find my calendar filled out in His handwriting. I wanted everything to be clear, distinct, unambiguous … safe.

There are times, those wonderful, glorious, reassuring, secure times, when we see with a Spirit-given clarity where we are to walk. But what about those nights when we’re still wide awake at three, or those days saturated with questions of how? where? when? should I?

Hebrews 11 says that faith hopes in what it does not see. Faith steps out in the darkness, not knowing what waits, but feeling the hand that guides and the love that surrounds.

How can I know God has asked me to follow a certain path? Can I be certain that I haven’t just talked myself into believing this? How do I know God is leading me?

Perhaps the answer is this simple: God says He will guide us.

Can we believe Him?

I can never escape from your Spirit!
   I can never get away from your presence!
If I go up to heaven, you are there;
   if I go down to the grave, you are there.
If I ride the wings of the morning,
   if I dwell by the farthest oceans,
even there your hand will guide me,
   and your strength will support me.

For many years, these verses simply told me of God’s omnipresence; He is everywhere. No escaping God. Today, I see instead the verses that say, No matter where I walk, your hand will guide me, and your strength will support me.

God’s hand is always on my life. My times are in His hands. And not only does He hold my life in His hands, but His hand guides me. And His strength supports me.

What comfort!

That is, by the way, one of the names Jesus gave the Holy Spirit — the Comforter. In John 14, Jesus says He is leaving the earth, but the Spirit of God would come to believers, and He will never leave you. He is the Holy Spirit, who leads into all truth.

Father, Jesus, Spirit, help our unbelief!

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Scripture: Psalm 139:7-10, John 14:16-17