GOD, GUIDANCE OF
And to the woman were given two wings of a great eagle, that she might fly into the wilderness, into her place, where she is nourished for a time, and times, and half a time, from the face of the serpent. And the earth helped the woman, and the earth opened her mouth, and swallowed up the flood which the dragon cast out of his mouth.
—Rev. 12:14, 16
1914 The Spirit Led Differently
The story of missions in more modern times tells of missionaries whose plans have been changed by the Holy Spirit. Judson wanted to go to India, but his course was changed and he went to Burma instead. When David Livingstone was twelve years of age, he read an appeal for missionaries to go to China and he decided to go. His next decision was to be a medical missionary. With this in view he began to complete his medical studies. About the time he was ready to go, the Opium War broke out and Englishmen could not go to China.
Robert Moffat was in England at that time telling of the South African mission. Livingstone was interested in Moffat’s story and said: “What is the use of waiting for the end of this abominable Opium War? I will go at once to Africa.” Thus the Holy Spirit led Livingstone to Africa and the dreadful slave trade was laid bare to the world.
—Mrs. A. L. Aulick
1915 Wherever He Leads I’ll Go
Livingstone planned to go to China, but God led him to Africa, to be its missionary-statesman, general and explorer. Alexander Mackay prepared for work in Madagascar, but was directed to Uganda, to aid in founding one of the most remarkable missions in the world. Carey proposed to go to the South Sea, but was guided divinely to India, to give the Bible in their native tongue to its teeming millions.
—J. H. Bomberger
1916 God’s Way is Best
Adoniram Judson clearly was appointed by the Holy Ghost to the ministry among the heathen. He reached Calcutta in the summer of 1812 full of ardor for preaching the Gospel, only to receive peremptory orders from the British Government to leave the country at once and return to America. With sad hearts the little missionary company retreated to the Isle of France, wondering why what had seemed a wide and effectual door opened to them should now be violently shut. But with unconquerable determination they returned again to India, reaching Madras in the following June.
Once more their purpose was thwarted, and once more they were ordered from the country; and being compelled to quit the land, with heavy hearts they fled to Rangoon, to a place which Judson had declared that he regarded with the utmost aversion as a missionary field. There he was permitted to stay, only to find bonds and imprisonment awaiting him.
But all is clear now. Judson was forbidden by the Spirit to enter India because God would have him in Burma.
Park Street Church in Boston, whose call the Spirit constrained Judson to decline, is still a large body, numbering perhaps a thousand members; but the Church in Burma which that same Spirit led Judson to found numbered thirty thousand communicants.
—A. J. Gordon
1917 Word Fitly Spoken
Some time ago in Schenectady, N. Y., before an audience which included many young engineers from General Electric, I spoke of feeding upon Christ, pointing out that the physical action of today was the result of last week’s food, and that the spiritual action in any life is the result of previous feeding upon Christ.
I said, “For example, a young man trained as an engineer, with bright prospect before him, hears the call of God to go out to Africa as a missionary, leaves his position, and faces the Dark Continent. He has been feeding on Christ.”
I had not more than pronounced the benediction that a young man came up to me and asked, “Why did you say what you did about an engineer going to Africa?” I answered that, as I was preaching, the Holy Spirit had led me. And the young man replied, “I am an engineer and God is calling me to Africa, and I must leave my career and go there as a missionary.” It was a “word fitly spoken” which reached his particular case.
—Donald Grey Barnhouse
1918 Ship Steered to “Uninhabited” Island
Admiral Sir Thomas Williams, a straight-forward and excellent man, was in command of a ship crossing the Atlantic. His course brought him in sight of the island of Ascension, at that time uninhabited and never visited except for the purpose of collecting turtles.
The island was barely visible on the horizon, but as Sir Thomas looked at it he was seized by an unaccountable desire to steer towards it. His desire became more and more urgent and distressing, and foreseeing that it would soon be more difficult to satisfy it, he told his lieutenant to prepare to “put about ship” and steer in that direction. The officer respectfully remonstrated that changing course would greatly delay them. This only increased the Admiral’s anxiety, and the ship was steered towards the island.
All eyes were fixed upon it, and soon something was perceived on the shore. “It is white—it is a flag—it must be a signal!” When they neared the shore they discovered that sixteen men, wrecked on the coast many days before, and suffering hunger, had set up a signal, although almost without hope of relief.
What made the Admiral steer his ship in the very opposite direction to what he and his crew wanted was but the superhuman Spirit of God.
—Walter Baxendale
1919 A Civil Engineer To India
In 1864 during a crisis at the Telegu Mission in India, John E. Clough offered to go to the “Lone Star” field. But what did the American Baptist Missionary Union want a civil engineer for in South India? Despite mission board misgivings, his zeal paid off and he was on his way.
Thirteen years later, it became apparent why God has called this non-seminary-trained man in India. During the great famine of 1876–77, it was his civil engineering degree that won him the appointment to supervise the digging of the unfinished Buckingham Canal, enabling him to hire thousands of starving natives, and so securing them wages and means to buy food.
And becauce of such sympathetic contacts with the Telegus, Clough was able to give them the Scriptures and preach to them about Christ.
1920 Coincidental Journey In South Africa
When the missionary Barnabas Shaw was forbidden to preach in Cape Town he decided not to leave Africa, but to push into the interior. He bought a yoke of oxen, put his wife and his goods into a wagon and started out, resolved to settle wherever he would be allowed to preach.
So they journeyed for three hundred miles. Then while camping one night they discovered that a band of Hottentots were also camping nearby. In conversation with the leader Shaw learned that the heathen were on their way to Cape Town to find a missionary. The similar meeting of Philip and the eunuch (Act 8:26–40) flashed through his mind, when he realized that God had been leading him where He wanted him to go.
—Gospel Herald
1921 Staying There At Deerfield Academy
Headmaster Frank L. Boyden of the famous Deerfield Academy, one of the best-known boys’ schools in the United States was once offered a $20,000 salary, together with the promise of a $6,000,000 fund to open a new school in a midwestern state if he would leave Deerfield Academy, which was at that time a poor and struggling school. This was a tempting offer to make to a teacher.
In the midst of his inner conflict, Boyden went to his Bible. He read the place where it fell open. The verse said, “If ye still abide in this land, then would I build you and not pull you down.” Then and there Frank Boyden decided to stay at Deerfield, and the years have proven the wisdom of his decision.
—Benjamin P. Browne
1922 God Told Me About Peanut
Testifying before the Senate Agriculture Committee on the value of the peanut, George Washington Carver, who as an infant was traded for a broken-down racehorse, said that he got his knowledge of peanuts from the Bible. Asked what the Bible said about peanuts he replied, “The Bible does not teach anything regarding the peanut. But it told me about God, and God told me about the peanut.”
1923 Science of Guidance
In an advertisement describing its guidance computer, the Burroughs Corporation speaks of “the science of guidance.” The Corporation’s scientists and engineers have worked hard and patiently until they have discovered the laws that govern the guidance of satellites from their launching to their destinations in the skies. These laws they now speak of as “the science of guidance.”
1924 Steering By Higher Compass
Before the days of modern navigational aids a traveler made the Atlantic crossing in a boat equipped with two compasses. One was fixed to the deck where the man at the wheel could see it. The other compass was fastened up on one of the masts, and often a sailor would be seen climbing up to inspect it.
The passenger asked the captain, “Why do you have two compasses?”
“This is an iron vessel,” replied the captain, “and the compass on the deck is often affected by its surroundings. Such is not the case with the compass at the masthead; that one is above the influence. We steer by the compass above.” Do we also as Christians?
—Prairie Overcomer
1925 Inertial Guidance Of “Nautilus”
When the U.S.S. Nautilus made her epoch-making journey under the Arctic icecap, there were no guiding stars or radio beams to give her position. Instead, the world’s first nuclear-powered sub marine relied upon a new means of finding latitude and longitude without external reference points. The means used was inertial guidance. With it the submarine made the journey without visual or electronic aid from earth or stars. To believers, this would be the inner promptings of the Holy Spirit.
1926 That Lone Star Amidst Storm
An artist once drew a picture. It represented a night-scene. A solitary man is rowing a little skiff across a lake; the wind is high and stormy, the billows, white and crested, rage around his frail bark; and not a star, save one, shines through the dark and angry sky above.
But upon that lone star the voyager fixes his eye, and keeps rowing away—on, on, on through the midnight storm. Written beneath the picture were these words, “If I lose that I’m lost!”
1927 The North Star
There is one star in our northern sky which never sets. For thousands of years it has been the brightest and most reliable guide for travelers, especially for sailors. It is called Polaris or the Pole Star. Better known is its name of North Star. It is located directly above the North Pole. You can find it rather readily by following with your eye an imaginary line through the pointers of the Great Dipper. Find it on some starlit night. That is what the Phoenicians and Vikings and sailors of the north did long ago when they started to sail the seven seas. By that bright light they made sure of their location and their direction.
—Tonne
1928 Lining Up Three Light
“When I was crossing the Irish Channel one starless night, I stood on the deck by the captain and asked him, “How do you know Holyhead Harbor on so dark a night as this?” He said, “You see those three lights? All of them must line up together as one, and when we see them so united, we know the exact position of the harbor’s mouth.”
“When we want to know God’s will there are three things which always concur: the inward impulse, the Word of God, and the trend of circumstances—God in the heart, and God in circumstances, indicating His will. Never start until these three things agree.”
—F. B. Meyer
1929 Those Range Marks
St. Mary’s River, Mich., between Lake Superior and Lake Huron is very crooked, and therefore very dangerous for ships passing up and down, yet there is an immense amount of shipping going thru it continually.
In the 19th century, to overcome these dangers there were at certain places on both banks what was called “range marks.” That is, a lane is cut up from the bank through the trees, and a large mark is set up near the shore, and one farther back; then the sailor on his ship has to get these two marks in a line with each other, and when so, he knows he has to change the course of his ship to avoid shoal water. At night these “range marks” are lighted up. So by carefully watching these marks at every bend of the river, ships can navigate safely even by night. So God gives us marks in His book, and by His providence, and by His Holy Spirit, by which we may safely steer our course through the rocks and breakers of life.
—E. Herbert
1930 Just Enough Light For Glowworm
Dr. Alexander of Princeton once described a little glowworm which took a step so small that it could hardly be measured, but as it moved across the fields at midnight there was just enough light in its glow to light up a step ahead, and so as it moved forward it moved always in the light.
1931 Perfect Yardstick In London
After ten years of patient work, experts in London finished what is said to be the most perfect yardstick in the world. It is made of platinum and iridium, and was designed to be used as the standard of the British government. Every year for ten years it will be examined and if it varies by a millionth of an inch it will be rejected. The Bible is the Christian’s standard for his rule of conduct.
—Aguilla Webb
1932 If Cathedral Wavers …
The Cathedral of Florence has a dome built by Filippo Brunelleschi (1377–1446). The builder left a small opening in the dome through which a shaft of light streams every June 21. The sunbeam illuminates squarely a brass plate set in the floor of the sanctuary. Should the ray fail to cover the plate completely or should there be any other divergence it would be considered a signal of alarm. It would indicate that the structure had shifted its center of gravity, and steps would be taken to deal with the emergency. The cathedral is considered to stand on marshy ground and wheeled traffic is forbidden in its immediate vicinity.
—Robert Ripley
1933 Wrong Direction Into Blizzard
A terrible blizzard was raging over the eastern part of the States making more and more difficult the progress of a train that was slowly facing its way along.
Among the passengers was a woman with a child, who was much concerned lest she should not get off at the right station. A gentleman, seeing her anxiety, said:
“Do not worry. I know the road well, and I will tell you when you come to your station.”
In due course the train stopped at the station before the one at which the woman wanted to get off.
“The next station will be yours, ma’am,” said the gentleman.
Then they went on, and in minutes the train stopped again.
“Now is your time, ma’am; get out quickly,” he said.
The woman took up her child, and thanking the man, left the train. At the next stop, the brakeman called out the name of the station where the woman had wished to get off.
“You have already stopped at this station,” called the man to the brakeman. “No, sir,” he replied, “something was wrong with the engine, and we stopped for a few moments to repair it!”
“Alas!” cried the passenger, “I put that woman off in the storm when the train stopped between stations!” Afterwards, they found her with her child in her arms. Both were frozen to death! It was the terrible and tragic consequence of wrong direction being given! Still more terrible are the results of misdirecting souls!
—Billy Sunday
See also: Consecration.