“ Thou wilt shew me the path of life: in thy presence …” (Ps 16:11, KJV)
When the disciples asked Jesus (in John 4:31-34) if He wants to go somewhere to eat with them, He answered as follows: “I have food to eat of which you do not know … My food is to do the will of Him who sent Me, and to finish His work.”
The table of showbread also indicates the will of God in your life. Thus, do not miss the veiled “bread of Presence” in the above quote from Ps 16; besides, this “show Presence” is manifested on the path of life that He has chosen for us – in short: the will of God in your life.
In a biography about the life of David Livingstone, the great Africa evangelist, George Seaver aptly states the problem people have regarding the will of God in their lives, and I quote: “Setting aside any consideration of self-regarding aims, personal desires and inclinations, which have no end beyond their own satisfaction and perish with fulfilment because their directive impulse is nothing but a kind of rationalized instinct; and assuming the magnetic attraction of an ultimate objective of more enduring value, namely to do the Will of God – how may we know with any certitude what it is? That is the fundamental problem which the life of Livingstone poses. Throughout it, from first to last, he had sincerely sought to know and do the Will of God. Had he really merged his will in God’s Will, or had he mistaken it for his own?”
Few people in history have offered up as much for a calling as Livingstone. His wife become an alcoholic from loneliness and died young; his children were almost all put into orphanages; he himself endured great discomfort and died (too) young due to neglect and inadequate medical care. In all that time he made only one convert. On his deathbed he received a report that this convert, a chief with five wives, ate all his wives. Thus the questions that Seaver asks above. Was he really walking in the will of God or did he just think he was walking on the correct path, but its end was, alas, a way of death (Prov 14:12)?
Sela on this frightening possibility.
- Sela: Consider your life under the guidance of the Holy Spirit and determine to what degree you are walking in the perfect will of God.
- Read: Ex 25; Ps 75; Mark 1
- Memorise: Ex 25:40
- Going deeper: Read Tom Gouws’ poetry anthology Syspoor (Human & Rousseau), in which the whole issue of the will of God is examined and expressed in poetry. Are you on His path or are you sidetracked?