Daily Affirmations - Day 1 - The Lord Will Guide You - Always: Through Drought and Desert

This week's Theme: The Lord will guide you always

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Day 1: Through drought and desert

Isaiah 58:11:

“And the Lord shall guide thee continually, and satisfy thy soul in drought, and make fat thy bones; and thou shalt be like a watered garden, and like a spring of water, whose waters fail not”  (King James Version).

"The Lord will guide you always..." (New International Version).

...To those who are living in the faith, and are walking conformably to their profession.... Five distinct features of their [happiness] are mentioned. They are described as enjoying perpetual guidance, inward satisfaction, spiritual health, flourishing fruitfulness, and unfailing freshness of supply.

I. Continual Guidance - “The Lord shall guide thee continually.”

There comes to [people who are full of God's Spirit] as to other men, dilemmas... Walking along the road of life you may suddenly reach a turning: two roads meet. Which is the way? Is it to the right hand or to the left?

Possibly both may appear to be equally right. You ask friends or neighbours; they will readily enough mislead you with the best intentions. You consult your own heart, and if you follow its counsels, you will discover yourself to be a fool.

But, if your heart be true, and God’s grace be flourishing in your soul, you will not be long held in the dilemma. You will take the case before God... and you shall hear a voice behind you saying, “This is the way, walk ye in it.”

It may be providence will block up one of the two roads, and point to the other; or else, your judgment being further enlightened, you shall see that the one is right and the other wrong; [perhaps], some stress shall be put upon your soul, so that, though you hardly know why, you will feel that you must choose the right and leave the wrong.

There are no dilemmas out of which you shall not be delivered if you live near to God, and your heart be kept warm with holy love. He goes not amiss who goes in the company of God...

The path of doctrine, also, is sometimes difficult. He who understands divine truth will, I am sure, be led to confess that he does not know everything....

There is a path which the eagle’s eye hath not seen, the penetration of intellect cannot discover it; the lion’s whelp has not trodden it — all the force of a man’s mind has not been able to lead him into it; but if we wait upon God, He will show us the way... Let the heart be constantly kept at the foot of the cross, and let the Holy Spirit bedew it with his sacred influence, and the Holy Spirit will lead us into all truth...

So shall it be... in matters of spiritual experience. Our experience often seems to be as though it had no rule. There is method in some men’s madness, but it does appear as if there were no method in our experience.

Today we are on the mountain, blessed of God with full assurance: to-morrow we are in the glens beneath the dark shadow, wondering why, and asking if God hath forgotten to be gracious. As when a child on a slate draws zigzag lines everywhere, but straight lines nowhere, so has it seemed with our life — as if we were farther back now than when we started...

[Fellow believers in Jesus], if we are enabled by grace to seek close and vital union with Christ, and to live upon Him daily and continually, we may rest assured that whether our experience be gloomy or delightful, and whether our inward conflicts or joys be paramount, He will still be at the helm, and will guide us continually...

“The Lord shall guide thee.” Not an angel, but JEHOVAH shall guide thee... Christian, God has not left you in your earthly pilgrimage to an angel’s guidance: He Himself will lead... Jehovah shall never forsake you. Jehovah shall guide you continually.

Notice the word shall “The Lord shall guide thee.” How certain this makes it! How sure it is that God will not forsake us! His precious “shalls” and “wills” are better than men’s oaths. “I will never leave nor forsake thee.” In one place he puts in five negatives, “I will not leave thee; I will never, never, never, forsake thee.”

Observe that adverb “continually.” We are not to be guided only sometimes... not occasionally to be left to our own understanding, and so to wander, but we are continually to hear the guiding voice of the Great Shepherd; and as we follow close at His heels we shall not err, but be led by a right way to a city to dwell in.

You have been, perhaps, in a maze, and you know how difficult it is to find your way to the centre. But sometimes there is one perched aloft who sees the whole of the maze spread out before him like a map, and he calls out to you to turn either to the right or to the left, and if you attend to his directions you soon find the way.

Even so the maze of life is only a maze to us, but God can see it all. He who ruleth over all, looks down upon it as men look down upon a map; and if we will but look to Him, and if our communion be constantly kept up we shall never err, but we shall come to the goal of our hopes right speedily by following His voice.

...Never be afraid, my dear friend, if you have to change your position in life; if you have to emigrate to distant shores; if... you are cast into poverty, or uplifted suddenly into a more responsible position man the one you now occupy; if you are thrown among strangers, or cast among foes, yet tremble not, for “the Lord shall guide thee continually.”

This is more than the statesman can say with all his craftiness.... more than all the cunning men can say who use their wits to plunder their fellows... more than the wisest man can say who trusts in his own judgment.

You have infallible wisdom to direct you, immutable love to comfort you, and eternal power to defend you. “Jehovah”— mark the word — “Jehovah” shall guide thee continually.”

~ C.H. Spurgeon ~ May 4, 1867