Tuesday 24 May 2016

God leads me perfectly

God is my strength and power, And He makes my way perfect. He makes my feet like the feet of deer, And sets me on my high places. – 2 Samuel 22.33-34

God has a path prepared for us. We are told in Hebrews to patiently run the race that God has laid out for us. We read the other day about how God’s path is perfect and the path we have planned can lead to death.

God’s path preserved Israel in the long wanderings in the Wilderness. God had led David through all the opposition of Saul and then his own son.

It can take a lot of faith for us to accept that the way God has laid out for us in the perfect path when it doesn’t seem that way. But we can be assured like David here and like Habakkuk that even if things don’t go well we can trust God and He will carry us through.

The Lord knows the way through the Wilderness – all I have to do is follow.

Thomas Gilmore wrote a beautiful hymn in the midst of the American Civil War. He based it on the 23rd Psalm speaking of God’s guidance in a troubled nation. It speaks in better words than I possibly could about God’s loving leadership and my desire to follow in the perfect way He has laid out.

He leadeth me, O blessèd thought!
O words with heav’nly comfort fraught!
Whate’er I do, where’er I be
Still ’tis God’s hand that leadeth me.

Sometimes mid scenes of deepest gloom,
Sometimes where Eden’s bowers bloom,
By waters still, over troubled sea,
Still ’tis His hand that leadeth me.

Lord, I would place my hand in Thine,
Nor ever murmur nor repine;
Content, whatever lot I see,
Since ’tis my God that leadeth me.

And when my task on earth is done,
When by Thy grace the vict’ry’s won,
E’en death’s cold wave I will not flee,
Since God through Jordan leadeth me.

He leadeth me, He leadeth me,
By His own hand He leadeth me;
His faithful follower I would be,
For by His hand He leadeth me.

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