Enough Guidance, Enough Care

As I read through the Bible (a yearly discipline) and read my chosen devotional book, I’m often startled by the juxtaposition of the two days’ readings. This happened today.

Yesterday was entirely too full. After it was over, my bone tired body and befuddled mind wondered if God had guided me to do all this, or the day’s activities had been the product of vain ambition on my part. I went to bed praying for a long, deep sleep, something I seldom need to ask for since I usually sleep like a dead person.

This morning I am reading the very end of Exodus where God’s guidance is described. “Whenever the cloud was taken up from above the tabernacle, the children of Israel would go onward in all their journeys. But if the cloud was not taken up, then they did not journey till the day that it was taken up” (Exodus 40:36-37).

God put a cloud over His people when He wanted them to stay put, and a pillar of fire to impress them to move on. Christians often say things like, “I felt this was what God wanted” or “I don’t have peace about doing that.” We are guided by a spiritual sensation that could also be emotional, but I never related to the cloud and the pillar until just now.

The cloud could be a foreshadowing of that sense of doubt or lack of peace that tells us whatever we are considering may not be the will of God. It is one of those “when in doubt, don’t” sensations, an inner guidance from the Holy Spirit.

The fire could be a type or foreshadow of the nudging of His Spirit that makes us feel strongly urged to go ahead. Yesterday I felt that sense of ‘go for it’ all day. It wasn’t until evening when all that ‘going for it’ had me weak-kneed that I began doubting that God was in it.

This morning my devotional, God is Enough, is again about the fatherhood of God. In part, it says, “We are told that we are of the ‘household of God’ (Ephesians 2:19). The principle is announced in the Bible that if any man provides not for his own household, he has ‘denied the faith, and is worse than an infidel’ (1 Timothy 5:8). Since we are of the 'household of God,' this principle applies to God, and if He should fail to provide for us, His own words would condemn Him.”

Later in the writing, the author says this is “meant to teach us the magnificent fact that the Creator, who has made human parents responsible toward their children, is himself equally responsible toward His children.”

With the author, I felt distinct joy at this, and at the same time some guilt that I had not trusted God concerning yesterday’s path. Certainly earthly fathers can fill a child’s day with chores and activities that leave that child almost out of breath with exhaustion, yet that same father would tuck his exhausted offspring into bed and make sure nothing disturbed his rest.

How much more does God do the same thing! The Bible is filled with exhortations to wait on Him when we are weary and overburdened. I know that at timed my burdens could be my own doing, but not always. He gives responsibilities that stretch my faith; these might also stretch my physical resources. But then “He gives His beloved sleep” (Psalm 127:2).

All day He guided me with fire in my heart and took me through an unusually busy schedule. Then, when the fire burned out, He took responsibility for my exhaustion and gave me a long, deep sleep.

Surely my heavenly Father is enough!