Help, I’m Lost

Trust in the LORD with all your heart, and lean not on your own understanding; In all your ways acknowledge Him, and He shall direct your paths. Proverbs 3:5-6 NKJV

Have you ever been lost? In our world with smart phones and GPS devices, it’s more difficult to get lost than it used to be, but it’s still possible.

Even if you haven’t felt physically lost, I’ve no doubt that you’ve felt metaphorically lost: confused about a decision you have to make or at a crossroads where you don’t know what to do about something.

In these moments, we can lean on a promise from Scripture that God will provide the direction and guidance you need. It’s not a conditional promise, but a promise that reminds us we can find full assurance in Him:

In all your ways acknowledge Him, and He shall direct your paths.  

So how do we acknowledge the Lord in all our ways? I’ve found a particular interpretation of this phrase to be helpful-- to walk through your day with a God-consciousness. In our society, I think it’s easy for us to live as functional atheists. We might connect with God once during the day if we think of it, but mostly navigate our daily decisions as if God doesn’t even exist. We lose our connection point, which makes it all the more important that we remain God-conscious. To do so, I’d like to offer a couple practical suggestions. 

1. Build conversations with God into the rhythm of your day so that you’re connecting with Him often. I have a friend whose alarm goes off every day at 9 a.m. and the alarm reads “This could be the day that the Lord returns.”  It stops his tracks and reorients his thinking immediately. For me, I begin my day at 5 a.m. with coffee and prayer before I go for a run. After I’m done and showered, I bring coffee to my wife so we can pray and read Scripture together. Then at noon, I try to pause for five minutes to connect with the Lord. You don’t need to read a chapter of Scripture every day or pray a long, elaborate prayer. I usually pause to slowly pray The Lord’s Prayer. It’s brief, but it reconnects me to my Power Source. Then again with my afternoon coffee. And before I go to sleep, one more time, I pause and pray and reflect on the day with the Lord. But that’s my routine and you have to find a rhythm that works for you.
2. Take some time each week to memorize a portion of Scripture. We don’t live in a culture of memorization; instead, we just Google information when we need it. There is definitely a power to the memorization of Scripture! The Lord will direct your mind to a particular phrase-- not even necessarily an entire verse-- and it will be just what you needed for that particular moment. If you have God’s Word in your heart, nothing and no one can take it away from you. The enemy is real and he comes to seek and destroy you, your faith, your body, your mind. And when he attacks you, your best weapon is the sword of the Word of God. 

The second half of this verse brings our big promise: He will direct your path. As you pray and memorize Scripture, He will show you what step to take.

How does He do this?  

1. Walk in the Spirit. If you are a committed child of God, the Holy Spirit dwells within you. And when you slow down and quiet yourself long enough to listen, the Spirit will lead and direct you. “Nudges,” I call them. Have you experienced them? An uneasy feeling like “no, maybe I shouldn’t go there” or “I just feel like I should text this person.” Sometimes they can be lifesaving! So be quiet and listen to that nudge. You never know who is suffering around you and how you can be the hands and feet of Jesus for them. As you walk with Christ, you’ll gain an increasing sense of the Lord’s direction of your steps. You can’t know your path for the future well in advance, but when you walk faithfully with the Lord, He will direct one step at a time.  
2. Let the Word of God guide you. All leadings of the Holy Spirit must be congruent with Scripture. If you think that the Spirit is leading you to do something but it is out of line with what the Bible says, you can know that it’s not the Holy Spirit you’re hearing. Spend time in the Word so you can know for sure. The Word and the Spirit work in our lives in tandem. You can be certain that nothing the Spirit leads you to do will contradict God’s instructions for us in Scripture.
3. Consult with your “weighty friends.” In our Evangelical Friends tradition, this refers to friends who also pray for discernment from God. It’s actually a beautiful compliment to them, even if it doesn’t sound it like (I wouldn’t suggest you tell someone, “you’re one of my weighty friends” without at least giving them some context for it!). A circle of friends to surround you who value walking in the Spirit and knowing God’s Word is incredibly important; the Holy Spirit will use them to be honest with you based on what they know about the truth of God’s Word rather than just telling you what you want to hear.  

Thomas Merton, one of the most important Christian writers of the 20th century, wrote a prayer that beautifully captures the assurance the Lord has for us:

“My Lord God, I have no idea where I am going. I do not see the road ahead of me. I cannot know for certain where it will end, nor do I really know myself, and the fact that I think I am following Your will does not mean I’m actually doing so. But I believe that the desire to please You does, in fact, please You. And I hope I have that desire in all that I am doing. I hope that I will never do anything apart from that desire. And I know that if I do this, You will lead me by the right road, though I may know nothing about it. Therefore will I trust You always though I may seem to be lost and in the shadow of death. I will not fear, for You are ever with me, and You will never leave me to face my perils alone.”

Additional reading: 1 Thessalonians 5:17, Psalm 119:11, Isaiah 30:12, Psalm 25:4-5, Proverbs 13:20