“I will instruct you and teach you in the way you should go; I will counsel you with My loving eye on you.” — Psalm 32:8
Follow Your Guide
Adaptive sports have always fascinated me. As much as I’ve loved watching able-bodied sports, there’s a special interest I’ve discovered over the years with events such as the Paralympics, Warrior Games, Invictus Games and athletic competitions that require athletes to compete in a different form than able-bodied competitors. It requires adaptive equipment, adaptive competition rules, adaptive times, and so much more. One of these adaptive necessities for those with vision impairment is the need for a guide. These guides are able-bodied athletes who train just as hard as the adaptive competitor and who are absolutely vital to helping the athlete know where to go, what pace to keep and how to finish.
At a Paralympic track event years ago, I recall watching the guides tying their wrists together with their assigned athletes so that just by the movement and pressure of the guide’s hand, the athlete could know where to go, how to run, and how stay in their lane. It was a wonderful picture of how the Lord Jesus is the ultimate Guide for us in this race called life.
Much like the visually-impaired athletes, we see with eyes that have been darkened by sin. We cannot run a straight race on our own and often find ourselves prone to veer off course when we attempt to go based on our own vision. Without the guidance of the Lord, we do not stand a chance at finishing the race at all, let alone finishing well. We need our Guide to lead us, or our own sight will deceive us as to where our direction is.
In Psalm 32:8, God gives us a precious promise regarding His assured guidance when we trust Him to lead us in the correct way and to keep us on track in our race. He says, “I will instruct you and teach you in the way you should go; I will counsel you with My loving eye on you.”
Many people often think that in allowing Jesus to lead their life, easy paths are sure to follow. They take passages like Proverbs 3:5-6 and assume that because they trust in the Lord and let Him guide them, His “straight paths” will automatically take them to success in what they desire. But this is not how God works. Many times, His paths lead through failure and hardship, through trials and suffering. This is when our faith in His ability to guide us must be greater than our fears of where we might be heading. Just like the adaptive-sport athletes, we must learn in these situations to ignore our own instincts regarding the course and believe that Jesus’ vision is far greater than our own.
Whatever paths you may be led down today, be they ones of prosperity or ones of adversity, have faith that your Guide is infallible — that His purposes and outcomes are sure, and He will never lead His beloved ones amiss.
— Katherine Singer
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