You speak of feeling God’s leading toward this venture of walking dogs, and of a desire that God should speak through you and demonstrate the gospel. That is a worthy longing. But let it be weighed. Peter walking on the sea without Divine Permission would be a presumption to attempt and an impossibility to perform! But Peter, with Christ’s assurance, might have walked across the Atlantic, itself, if his faith had not failed! So it is with you. If the impulse springs from the Spirit’s prompting, go forward in that strength; but if it is merely your own whim or caprice which has thrust you into a position for which you are not qualified, you have no right to reckon upon the Divine Aid to speed your false steps! Bowing with submission to the will of God, by that very fact we are furnished with unerring guidance. Seek therefore to know that this is His path and not merely your desire for income or activity.
Consider, too, what it means to demonstrate the gospel. There will be no reception and acceptance of Divine Grace by any man till there is a full confession of sin and a burdensome sense of its weight. Why should you receive Divine Grace when you do not want it? You are not in a position for Him to display free Divine Grace to you till your mouth is shut and you sit down in dust and ashes. The gospel you would show forth is not first about the pleasantness of provision but about grace abounding over abounding sin. In human character, where sin abounded, grace did much more abound. Walk humbly, then, with this God who saves. Humble walking with God signifies a perception of His Being and Presence, a profound deference to His will and a glad submission to it. Complaining and rebelling are not walking humbly with God; humbly walking with God yields itself entirely to the Divine will and says, “Shall we receive good at the hand of God and shall we not receive evil?”
You ask prayer that people contact you and that it goes well. That is understood. Yet what if the Lord in His sovereignty withholds quick success to teach you to trust? What if He sends you walking in darkness so that you may learn to rely upon His name? When He finds them walking in darkness, He graciously counsels and advises them, so that He may most effectually help them. Thus says the gracious Lord to the benighted one, “Let him trust in the name of the Lord, and rely upon his God.” Haste, too, is the author of a great deal of mischief. Divine interpositions come in the way of deliverance from floods of trouble, but they come in God’s time, not ours. The Divine Presence is the one hope of the people of God, and that Presence is with those who walk humbly, not those who rush ahead.
Go, then, with your brother if the way be clear, but go with this cry: “Surely God is in this place, and I knew it not.” Look not to the dogs or the coin or even the open air as your supply. The arm will not be far off on which you have to lean, the divine strength not be remote to which you have to look. The book speaks of victims and sacrifices, priests and washings, and so points us to the divine plan by which man can be elevated from the fall and be reconciled to God. Let that plan be your message, whether in silence or in speech, and let your walking be a humble, trusting walk with Him who orders all things according to the counsel of His will.