Sensitivity to God’s Will

I will instruct you and teach you in the way which you should go;
I will advise you with My eye upon you.
(Psalm 32:8 NASB)

In Psalm 32 we find a dialogue between David and the Lord.

By the way, notice that this psalm is not only called “A Psalm of David,” it is also called ‘‘A Maskil.” A maskil is an instructive psalm. Also notice that right in the heart of the psalm the word Selah appears three times. Selah is a bracketed musical hint included by the psalmist, which calls for a pause. When you have a pause in music you ponder what has just been played or sung as it lingers in the air, and then you anticipate what is coming next. In music, a pause can be very effective.

God is silent. So He does not say, “I will instruct you with My voice.” He says, “I will instruct you and teach you and counsel you with My eye upon you.” The movement of the eyes is a silent movement. So, first of all, like a lip reader, we must be very sensitive and skilled as we study our Lord and then respond to the inner promptings from the Spirit of God.

God’s will is not only mysterious, but also unpredictable. We’ve certainly established that, haven’t we? Often it is not what we would have expected. Recently, a couple who are good friends of ours have been searching for God’s will in the area of the husband’s vocation. They had made a decision that seemed to be God’s will, only to come up against a brick wall. For them to stay in the situation would be a compromise of this man’s integrity. “So we’re backing away from that,” he told me. “For me to stay is to compromise my character. I won’t do that.” They are being very sensitive to what God is leading them to do because it is obviously not what they had anticipated.

Second, we need to be perceptive and patient because God’s plan is continually unfolding. What brought us to where we are right now is all part of His overall plan. But that plan is still in the process of unfolding in our lives, which means that taking us from where we are to His place for us in the future will involve change. And some of those changes are things we would never expect.