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TOPIC: Gordon, Samuel Dickey - Quiet Talks on Personal Problems (Other Topics in this Collection)
SUBJECT: 50. God Tells us His Plan for us.
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God Tells us His Plan for us.
God reveals his plan to a man. Of course He does. He naturally would if He expected a man to follow it. He has to tell it if we are to know it. He does tell it, and tells it in the plainest way. This is the second great factor in guidance. He not only reveals the plan to follow, and the path to tread, but he is eager to do it. He takes every man into His confidence regarding the plan for his life. But His great trouble is to get our attention so He can tell us.
Ever since man lost the vision of God's face in Eden, and the sound of His voice, God has had to do unusual things to attract man's attention, and get him to understand His plan, and hold him to it. Our spirit-senses are dulled by sin. Something startling must frequently be used. The strange sight of a bush all aflame yet not burnt up takes hold of Moses' scholarly temperament, and holds him quiet enough to hear the Voice and the plan.
A fire eating up the meal that Gideon had prepared for his pilgrim guest tells that startled man of God's unsuspected presence, and secures his splendid leadership in His plan. A vision of overwhelming glory led Isaiah into the deeper devotion that changed his spirit and his career. As extreme a measure as laming his body is used to waken up the scheming Jacob, for he has a will strong enough to be stubborn, but not yet strong enough to yield. A vision with features utterly repugnant to the hungry Peter tells him of God's plan for his outside, outcast brothers. For Paul, light so bright as to make the sun's light cast a shadow, and so blinding as to shut his outer eyes for days, that so the inner light might be lit, and the plan be seen. And later, a needle-pointed thorn ever prodding, but softened with a wondrous Presence, to hold Paul to the plan.
If something has come to you that seems very strange and unexplainable, better hold very quiet and still—God is probably trying to get your ear. He is talking; if you give your attention you will hear something. He needs some help; there is something to be done; he wants you to give Him a hand, a lift, a life-lift. He is trying to attract your attention. If you give it and fall in heartily with his plan, you will understand what He has been doing, and when the thing that hurts has done its work it will likely be taken away.
He reveals the general plan at once, but the steps in it only one at a time. He wants to keep us in touch all the time (Gen_22:2; Mat_2:13.). His plan needs two at each stage, Himself and you. We need to be trained to keep His pace. We are apt either to dash ahead or to lag behind. Both bother the plans. There is a fascination in noting how such strong men as Abraham (Gen_12:1; Gen_12:4 with Genesis 7; Gen_17:9-10 with Gem 17:23, and Gen_18:1) and Joshua (Note first ten chapters of Joshua) were told a step at a time what to do. As one step was taken the next became clear, and, that taken, cleared the next. Steady walking takes most strength. Some of us are good at a dashy eagle flight up, or a quick spurt down the road, but we have not learned the walk-step yet (Isa_40:31).