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TOPIC: Gordon, Samuel Dickey - Quiet Talks on Personal Problems (Other Topics in this Collection)
SUBJECT: 52. A Disciplined Judgment.
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A Disciplined Judgment.
There is a third essential of immense importance, and that is, listening to God. God is telling us the plan, and telling us the next step to take, but our ears bother us; they are so dull. It is amazing how many deaf children there are in God's family. The deafness seems to grow with the years too. For usually the child-ear—whether a child in years, or in religious experience—is keen, though it needs training. There is nothing so necessary as keen, trained ears. Yet there seems to be nothing rarer. An endless amount of doubt and difficulty in guidance can be traced back to this critical point.
The favorite word for listening in the Bible is the word waiting. It is a great word full of simple yet wondrous meaning. It means the turning of the face full up to God so as to know by a look what He would suggest; hearing through the eyes. It is exquisitely put in the Psalms. God assures us that He is ever keeping His eye upon us so that by our looking up we can catch His eye and so know what to do (Psa_32:8).
It means on our side watching God's slightest movement as intensely as a slave in those old times watched for the first and least suggestion of the master's desire.1 As the watch-guard on night duty upon the city wall in old Judea kept his eyes keenly towards the east to see the first gleam of the coming day that would relieve his long, lonely vigil (Psa_123:1-2) — so intensely and keenly we are to look towards God to get the first inkling of His will. The life is to be lived with its face always turned to God.
But this can be put in a very homely, matter-of-fact way that may help yet more. There are three things given us for guidance, the Word of God, the Spirit of God, and our own sense, or reasoning powers, our judgment. These three are meant to agree. When they do agree in one the way is surely clear. When they do not agree, the only wise thing to do is to do nothing, to wait till they do agree. Usually the judgment is amiss and needs straightening up to the other two.
The Word of God read habitually disciplines the judgment. There comes to be a settled conviction as to God's character and preferences and ways of working. There comes, too, a keener use of one's thinking powers. The Spirit of God within makes plain the meaning of the Word, and adapts it to our needs in a very wonderful way. With the Book of God in his hands in good plain type, and the Spirit of God in his heart, and the common sense with which we are all endowed, no man need be in doubt when acting time comes, nor make any mis-steps. And this is said with keen consciousness of many a slip.
The great sheet-anchor bit in the old Book is in the Twenty-fifth Psalm: "The meek will He guide in judgment"; that is, in his mental processes. The American Revision uses the word "justice" in place of "judgment"; but the reference clearly is to being just in one's decisions. Judgment is used in the sense of a decision. Here is the great simple promise regarding the process of guidance.
As I sift over the facts and circumstances that bear upon the decision, I must make the Spirit of God's will guide my thinking. He will help me to see colorlessly, to weigh accurately, and to reach a right conclusion. This is putting guidance on the highest plane. God uses the thinking powers He has given us. They need the discipline of His Word, of His Spirit's indwelling, and of use. Questions of right and wrong are decided by the statements of the Word. Questions of what best to do are decided by the judgment, disciplined by the Word, and guided by the Spirit.
Through habitual reading of the Word of God, in reverent dependence upon the Holy Spirit, for the purpose of learning God's will, there comes gradually to be a disciplined judgment, a simple common sense in weighing and deciding what best to do. There seems to be nothing much rarer nor scarcer than this. The personal coloring and preferences and advantages get in so strong that they twist the eyesight badly.
The passion for God's plan is the great counteractant for the undue personal element. The steady, burning passion to do His will makes one forget all else, and yet makes him fit eagerly in where service is called for, but with no sense of having done some great thing even when he has. He is absorbed in some One else through whose power the thing was accomplished, and whose glory is the one dominant thought.