Silas
Beloved of All
Your desire to want God's direction instead of simply following your own personal goals is right and pleasing to Him. That hunger to be led by Him is the foundation for everything else, because God's will for your life is the very best thing that could happen to you. He loves you deeply, and His purpose for you is better than any plan you could make for yourself.
It is important to understand what Proverbs 29:18 means when it speaks of vision. In that verse the word does not primarily mean a private mystical picture, but the revealed word and counsel of God. Where there is no prophetic revelation, no clear word from God, people cast off restraint and perish. The tragedy today is that many have never really read or understood the Bible, and even among believers it is often not truly taught. Yet Scripture is not the invention of man. All Scripture is given by inspiration of God, and holy men wrote as they were moved by the Holy Spirit. It has come to us from heaven, and its purpose is to work here on earth, to bear fruit in our lives. Like rain that soaks the ground, when God's word soaks your life it brings forth growth, it gives light, and it will not return void. It will accomplish what He intends.
The Bible does show that God has at times given visions. A vision is much like a dream, with the difference that you are awake and conscious while you see a picture in your mind. Paul at Troas saw such a vision in the night, a man from Macedonia pleading for help, and after seeing it he and his companions immediately sought to go there, concluding that the Lord had called them to preach the gospel there. God can still give such direction if He chooses, and it is right to be open to Him to do so if it is His will.
At the same time, many faithful servants have never had a vision or been directed by an angel, and God led them in a different way. He placed a deep, abiding desire in their hearts to serve Him, a quiet but strong urge to commit their lives to His purposes. That is often how His call comes. Faith that is built only on an experience is on dangerous ground, because experiences can fade or be contradicted. Faith built on the unchanging Word of God never wavers, because God's Word never changes. Every good and perfect gift does come down from the Father of lights, with whom there is no variableness or shadow of turning, and His Word is one of those perfect gifts.
The purpose of prayer is not to get God to accomplish your will, but to get God's will accomplished in you. We do not always know how to pray as we ought, and that is where the Holy Spirit helps us, assisting us when we do not know God's will in a particular situation. God created you as an object of His love, with a divine and eternal purpose, to have fellowship with Him and to be conformed to the image of Jesus Christ. Sin is what breaks that fellowship, but through Christ you are brought near. The only reason for being here is to be what God wants you to be, a servant doing His will so that He can show His power and strength through your life. It is so easy to get sidetracked by other things and end up set aside and unusable, and the desire of a faithful heart is to remain usable in His hand.
So my prayer for you is not simply that you would have an experience, but that you would be fully led by the Lord in the way He knows is best. May He soak your heart with His Word, make His will clear to you through Scripture, and by His Spirit guide your steps. May He keep you from being drawn aside into your own plans, and give you a willing heart to follow wherever He leads. If it pleases Him to give you a vision, may you receive it with humility and give Him all the glory, and if He leads you instead by a settled desire and the clear teaching of His Word, may you trust that just as fully. May He keep you in fellowship with Himself as you heed His commandments, and work in you what is good, conforming you more to Christ and fulfilling the eternal purpose for which He made you.
It is important to understand what Proverbs 29:18 means when it speaks of vision. In that verse the word does not primarily mean a private mystical picture, but the revealed word and counsel of God. Where there is no prophetic revelation, no clear word from God, people cast off restraint and perish. The tragedy today is that many have never really read or understood the Bible, and even among believers it is often not truly taught. Yet Scripture is not the invention of man. All Scripture is given by inspiration of God, and holy men wrote as they were moved by the Holy Spirit. It has come to us from heaven, and its purpose is to work here on earth, to bear fruit in our lives. Like rain that soaks the ground, when God's word soaks your life it brings forth growth, it gives light, and it will not return void. It will accomplish what He intends.
The Bible does show that God has at times given visions. A vision is much like a dream, with the difference that you are awake and conscious while you see a picture in your mind. Paul at Troas saw such a vision in the night, a man from Macedonia pleading for help, and after seeing it he and his companions immediately sought to go there, concluding that the Lord had called them to preach the gospel there. God can still give such direction if He chooses, and it is right to be open to Him to do so if it is His will.
At the same time, many faithful servants have never had a vision or been directed by an angel, and God led them in a different way. He placed a deep, abiding desire in their hearts to serve Him, a quiet but strong urge to commit their lives to His purposes. That is often how His call comes. Faith that is built only on an experience is on dangerous ground, because experiences can fade or be contradicted. Faith built on the unchanging Word of God never wavers, because God's Word never changes. Every good and perfect gift does come down from the Father of lights, with whom there is no variableness or shadow of turning, and His Word is one of those perfect gifts.
The purpose of prayer is not to get God to accomplish your will, but to get God's will accomplished in you. We do not always know how to pray as we ought, and that is where the Holy Spirit helps us, assisting us when we do not know God's will in a particular situation. God created you as an object of His love, with a divine and eternal purpose, to have fellowship with Him and to be conformed to the image of Jesus Christ. Sin is what breaks that fellowship, but through Christ you are brought near. The only reason for being here is to be what God wants you to be, a servant doing His will so that He can show His power and strength through your life. It is so easy to get sidetracked by other things and end up set aside and unusable, and the desire of a faithful heart is to remain usable in His hand.
So my prayer for you is not simply that you would have an experience, but that you would be fully led by the Lord in the way He knows is best. May He soak your heart with His Word, make His will clear to you through Scripture, and by His Spirit guide your steps. May He keep you from being drawn aside into your own plans, and give you a willing heart to follow wherever He leads. If it pleases Him to give you a vision, may you receive it with humility and give Him all the glory, and if He leads you instead by a settled desire and the clear teaching of His Word, may you trust that just as fully. May He keep you in fellowship with Himself as you heed His commandments, and work in you what is good, conforming you more to Christ and fulfilling the eternal purpose for which He made you.
