Isaiah 45:5 I am the LORD, and there is none else, there is no God beside me: I girded you, though you have not known me: But the inquiry will be made, supposing all this to be true, how can we ever get hold of this life-plan God has made for us, or find our way into it? 1. Observe some negatives that are important, and must be avoided. (1) You will never come into God's plan if you study singularity; for if God has a design or plan for every man's life, then it is exactly appropriate to his nature; and, as every man's nature is singular and peculiar to himself, — as peculiar as his face or look,-then it follows that God will lead every man into a singular, and peculiar life, without any study of singularity on his part. (2) As little will he seek to copy the life of another. No man is ever called to be another. (3) In this view, also, you are never to complain of your birth, your training, your employments, your hardships; never to fancy that you could be something if only you had a different lot and sphere assigned you. God understands His own plan, and He knows what you want, a great deal better than you do. (4) Another mistake is that, while you surrender and renounce all thought of making up a plan, or choosing out a plan, for yourself, as one that you set by your own will, you also give up the hope or expectation that God will set you in any scheme of life, where the whole course of it will be known, or set down beforehand. If you go to Him to be guided, He will guide you; but He will not comfort your distrust, or half-trust of Him, by showing you the chart of all His purposes concerning you. He will only show you into a way where, if you go cheerfully and trustfully forward, He will show you on still further. 2. But we must not stop in negatives. How, then, or by what more positive directions can a man, who really desires to do it, come into the plan God lays for him, so as to live it and rationally believe that he does? (1) Consider the character of God, and you will draw a large deduction from that; for all that God designs for you will be in harmony with His character. He is a being infinitely good, just, true. Therefore, you are to know that He cannot really seek anything contrary to this in you. (2) Consider your relation to Him as a creature. All created wills have their natural centre and rest in God's will. (3) You have a conscience, which is given to be an interpreter of His will, and thus of your duty, and, in both, of what you are to become. (4) God's law and His written Word are guides to present duty, which, if faithfully accepted, will help to set you in accordance with the mind of God and the plan He has laid for you. "I am a stranger in the earth," said one; "hide not Thy commandments from me"; knowing that God's commandments would give him a clue to the true meaning and business of his life. (5) Be an observer of providence. Study your trials, your talents, the world's wants, and stand ready to serve God now, in whatever He brings to your hand. (6) Consult your friends, and especially those who are most in the teaching of God. (7) Go to God Himself, and ask for the calling of God; for, as certainly as He has a plan for you, He will somehow guide you into it. This is the proper work of His Spirit. Young man, or woman! this is the day of hope to you. All your best opportunities are still before you. And what shall I say to the older man, who is further on in his course and is still without God in the world? The best end, the next best, and the next are gone, and nothing but the dregs of opportunity are left. And still Christ calls even you. There is a place still left for you; not the best and brightest, but a humble and good one. (H. Bushnell, D. D.) Parallel Verses KJV: I am the LORD, and there is none else, there is no God beside me: I girded thee, though thou hast not known me: |
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