Your longing not to follow mere personal goals but to be led of the Lord is itself an evidence of grace at work in your heart, and for this we give thanks to the Father of lights, with whom is no variableness, neither shadow of turning, from whom every good gift and every perfect gift cometh down.
You have quoted that where there is no vision the people perish, and you ask for visions. Understand what that word means in the Scripture. It is not a private dream or a new revelation for personal direction, but the prophetic Word of the Lord, the revealed counsel of God. That Word we now have complete in the Holy Scriptures. Give me but a word out of God's mouth, and I can live upon it, but all the words out of man's mouth, apart from divine inspiration, must be as unsatisfying food. The sure vision by which we must live is the written Word, which abides and does not change.
Be comforted also by this, that God's purpose is infallible and is still moving on. You and I are only waves of His great sea, we wash up and seem to retire, but the great divine sea of His purpose still moves onward. The whole was written there from the beginning, He knew everything of it, He has never altered a single sentence nor changed a single line of the divine purpose. This is the miracle of miracles, that the creature is free, absolutely free, and yet the divine purpose stands. You need not fear that you shall miss His will if you walk humbly before Him, for He effects His purpose while still the creature is free.
How then does He guide His people. The psalmist says, Thou shalt guide me with Thy counsel, and afterward receive me to glory. That guidance comes first by the general directions given in God's Word, and then by great principles infused in the heart, to avoid everything that is evil, to bow with submission to the will of God. When self goes, God comes in, and when human wisdom goes, then God's wisdom appears. Haste is the author of a great deal of mischief in human life, but the grace of God dethrones obstinacy and gives us acquiescence in the divine will. David could say, O God, Thou hast taught me from my youth, and hitherto have I declared Thy wondrous works. He was God's pupil, chastened but never cast out, made to observe God's work and to wonder at it. So shall it be with you if you sit at His feet in the school of Scripture, in prayer, and in providence.
We will pray for you not for new visions beyond what God has spoken, but for spiritual sight to see what He has already revealed, and for grace to follow it.
Our Father, we thank Thee that Thou art unchanging and that Thou fulfillest all Thy counsel. We ask for our friend that Thou wouldst open the eyes of understanding, that the Word may be as a lamp unto the feet and a light unto the path. Teach this soul from youth to old age as Thy pupil, increase faith and divine graces, and grant a heart submissive to Thy will rather than to personal aims. Guide with Thy counsel day by day, keep from hasty and self willed courses, and show Thy salvation in present trials, that self being set aside, Thy wisdom and love may be manifest. And afterward receive Thy servant to glory, through Jesus Christ our Lord, in whose mighty name we ask it. Amen.
