Our Guidance System

Dear Father,  in my  moments of such deep unrest -- moments when I do not know what to ask by reason of the very excess of all my wants,  I have, in these hours, no words for You, no conscious prayers for You. My cries seem purely worldly. I pray only the wings of a dove that I may flee away. Yet all the time You have accepted my unrest as a prayer. You have interpreted my cry for a dove's wings as my cry for You. You have received the nameless longings of my heart as the intercessions of Your Spirit. They are not yet the intercessions of my spirit; I know not what or how to ask. But You know. You know what I ask, my God. You know the names of each need which lies beneath my speechless groans. You know that, because I am made in Your image, I will find rest only in what gives rest to You. Therefore You have counted my unrest to me for righteousness and have called my groanings Your Spirit's prayer. Amen

Colossians 3:15  in the Amplified Bible states: “And let the peace (soul harmony which comes) from Christ rule (act as an umpire continually) in your hearts (deciding and settling with finality all questions that arise in your minds in that peaceful state) to which as [members of Christ’s] one body you were also called [to live].”

In the simplicity of Paul’s words, it is seriously doubtful that Paul referred to inner peace as an “umpire”. However, it is an analogy with which we can all relate.  My sons played baseball and on warm, summer evenings, we would sit cheering on our teams as the umpire kept an eye on the players/participants making sure that they stayed within certain parameters.  We have an “inner umpire”, the Holy Spirit. It is His job to keep us within the parameters God has established for each of our lives.  He lets us know by an inward perception, by peace or by unrest, whether we are safely pursuing the will of God for our lives or not. 

My son-in-law, in the Navy, is attached to an extremely large aircraft carrier. My brother served, also in the Navy aboard an aircraft carrier. Those mighty ships use an elite, internal guidance system that rivals the enemies of the USA.  The Holy Spirit that dwells within us can be illustrated by those elite internal guidance systems that are commonly used by ships, planes, and spacecraft today.  These mighty vessels all have an inner gyroscope that is based on the magnetic pull of the Earth.  These gyroscopes then send signals to instruments that indicate

altitude, or the position of the vessel.  Pilots, commanders, and helmsmen spend years, decades and thousands of hours training themselves to trust the readings given by the internal gyroscope, not outside reference points.  Many pilots have died because they tried to override their instruments, trying to depend on their human senses in a crisis situation.  The human eye and the inner ear particularly can give false readings leading a pilot, or a helmsman to believe that they are in one position when actually they are in another.  For example, when it is dark, with no light, visible horizon, or outside reference points, a pilot can easily believe that he is right side up when in reality he is upside down.  This has become known as spatial disorientation. 

If a pilot knows that he must choose to believe his instruments over his inner ear, he will be assured of personal safety.  Our inner ear can give us a false reading but the magnetic pull of God’s Earth, even though it may vary ever so slightly at the poles, never gives a false reading.  This fact is relied upon daily and pilots and helmsmen are trained to trust their lives and the lives of their men to this fact.

Our human minds, our outward circumstances, trusted loved ones, however well meaning, can all give wrong guidance that, while it appears to be right, is just like the inner ear of a pilot and can give us a false reading.  The Holy Spirit, however, is our own personal, inner gyroscope based on the magnetic pull of the earth.  He will never give us false reading because His guidance is based on the pull of an omniscient Father, who can be relied upon, trusted and guaranteed to lead us safely to our port, to a safe landing. 

We cannot forget that when the apostle Paul was on his journey to Rome on a prison ship, his “inner gyroscope” or the “inner witness”, the “inner umpire”  - the Holy Spirit was giving him a reading indicating that there was a problem brewing.  He could rely upon this fact even though outwardly everything appeared to be just fine.  The sun was shining and a cool breeze was blowing. The sea was calm - perfect sailing weather but every one of those outside reference points failed.  They turned out to be wrong.  Paul knew that his inner guidance system, the Holy Spirit, his Umpire, was sending him a “signal”, a perception that he felt down in his spirit indicating that they [the ship and its passengers] were heading off in the wrong direction. 

The Holy Spirit still guides Believers in this same way today.  Like me, no doubt, you are recalling times where you decided to override your “gyroscope”, this form of inner guidance and you ended up “shipwrecked”, figuratively speaking.

So many of us make the mistake of always wanting to taking the path of least resistance, allowing others, well-meaning as they may try to be, to guide us when the Holy Spirit wants to guide us directly.  Some (and I am guilty here as well) make the mistake of only looking for “emergency” guidance when a crisis arises.  A crisis is certainly not the time to attempt or try to develop a sensitivity to our inner gyroscope, the “inner witness” of the Holy Spirit. 

Still, there are some who insist that more spectacular forms of supernatural guidance such as voices, dreams, visions, prophecies and angels will come to guide us.  While I DO believe that these supernatural things do exist and God may use these methods to lead believers, I believe that His roadmap (His Word) should be used to align our inner gyroscope since this is not the primary way that the Holy Spirit guides us today.  In my life, the primary way the Holy Spirit leads me is by that “inner witness”, “inner perception” (likened to the “still small voice”), “peace that passes our finite understanding”, or “unrest.” 

When I am about to make a major life-affecting decision, and something on the inside is telling me “no, no, no” or “now is not the time”, or simply to “back off”, I try to remember how the ships and the airplanes rely on the inner gyroscopes and pray that I would take heed to my inner perception, my inner witness of the Holy Spirit. God’s guiding.  He never fails. -RLS