ELDER: Trust God’s Guidance in Your Life

Recently I attended a retreat that I had been in charge of planning for our church association. While making those arrangements last year, I did extensive research on the various venues that were available that would fit our needs and timeframe. I was looking for someplace different than where we had held this event in the past, trying to get the retreat more centrally located for our members. However, I kept running into roadblock after roadblock. Either the facilities weren’t adequate, or the dates we needed weren’t available, or in one case the hotel was involved in extensive remodeling. I finally booked our event at a location that wasn’t my first choice, but I hoped it would work out.

Now that the retreat is over, I am glad to report that it could not have turned out better. The location on a lake was beautiful, the staff at our hotel was so friendly and helpful, and the food was delicious. Everyone in attendance said it was a great spot that they would want to come back to for a future retreat. Knowing all the struggles that got us there, I could only give the glory to God for working everything out in the way that He did. In spite of what I had in mind, He opened and closed the right doors to get us to exactly where we needed to be.

It reminds me of the scripture that declares, “A man’s heart plans his way, but the Lord directs his steps” (Proverbs 16:9). There is nothing wrong with planning. It is necessary and helpful in many cases. However, we need to realize that we are not the one ultimately in control. If we are following the Lord, we have His assurance that He is guiding us. In the case of the retreat, some of my ideas and plans kept getting changed, but through it all God was directing us to just where He knew was best for the occasion.

Last week my wife and her mother were going on a beach trip together. On the morning of their departure, they had planned on getting an early start. Everything was looking favorable until they discovered there was a missing bag. The items in it were important enough that they backtracked to my mother-in-law’s house in order to search for it. It all turned into quite an ordeal that left them getting started on their vacation a couple of hours later than planned. When I spoke to my wife after they were finally on their way, I was pleased to hear that they weren’t frustrated over this delay. They assumed that God had a reason for this detour. They didn’t know if maybe it caused them to avoid an accident or if there was some other purpose, but they were trusting that the Lord was directing their steps.

Can we have that confidence when our plans go awry? I have to admit that I struggle with it sometimes. I can tend to get flustered when obstacles pop up, forcing me to adjust my plans. The Lord has helped me to deal with those situations better than I used to do, but I can still feel that urge to get frustrated when facing such unexpected circumstances.

I love the old song that asserts, “All the way my Savior leads me.” Let’s have faith that He is doing so. Sometimes we might be able to look back and see what He was doing, as I did concerning the retreat. Other times, we may never know why He led a certain way, but we simply trust there was a reason for it.

Let’s be thankful that God is leading us, whether it fits in with what we had originally planned or not.