Who directs our steps? What is the compelling guide that leads us to traverse the mountains and valleys of life? If our guide is sure and trustworthy, we can certainly feel at ease and be able to have peace that the route is correct and the journey will be true. But if our advisor does not know the way or is overconfident, we can easily be put in danger of becoming lost or injured. Fortunately, a perfect guide has been given us in the Holy Spirit. However, handing over the reigns of our lives can be a difficult endeavor.
The first step in allowing the Lord to guide our steps is repentance. Literally, repentance means turning away from self and towards the Lord. Therefore, it makes sense to assert repentance as the watershed action of relinquishing control to One who truly is in control, God. Any attempt to hand over the keys to our lives that misses this step will fail because control of the wheel has not been fully given to the sure driver. Imagine, for a second, a driver and a passenger each vying for control of the steering wheel while barreling down a narrow corridor on a steep mountain pass. Not effective and definitely dangerous.
Once we truly and wholly repent (which is to be a continuous action, not a once-for-all-time), then we will be able to listen to the direction that comes from the Lord. Isaiah says, "Your ears shall hear a word behind you saying, 'this is the way, walk in it' when you turn to the right or to the left (Isa. 30:21)." God, the true and perfect guide, desires to lead us through life. Paramount to this is our willingness to relinquish the wheel (repentance), followed by our willingness to listen to Him speak (faith abiding in His Word).
The Holy Spirit acts as the divine inner-driver for repentant believers. He guides, compels, teaches, and directs us in the way we should go. And, because He is who He is, He knows the right way. The Psalmist writes, "The steps of a man are established in the Lord when he delights in His way (Psa. 37:23)." This truth was not lost on Solomon who writes that the Lord makes straight the paths of those who trust in Him, do not lean on their own understandings, and who acknowledge Him (Pro. 3:5-6), and also, though a man plans in his heart, the Lord establishes his steps (Pro. 16:9).
At the final analysis, we who confess Christ should take this attitude among us, that, though we may have ideas of the way we should go, if our paths are not grounded in repentance and faith, listening to the Holy Spirit speak to us through His Word, then our plans will ultimately fail because they are not made secure and sure in the Lord. If we think of life like traveling, a picture comes to mind: there is a single, narrow road. To the immediate left and right of the road is washed-out sand, muddy bog, and cliffs that fall off into oblivion. We are the car. Who should we trust to drive it?
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