'I being in the way, the Lord led me.'--GENESIS xxiv. 27.
So said Abraham's anonymous servant when telling how he had found
Rebekah at the well, and known her to be the destined bride of his
master's servant. There is no more beautiful page, even amongst the
many lovely ones in these ancient stories, than this domestic idyll of
the mission of the faithful servant from far Canaan across the desert.
The homely test by which he would determine that the maiden should be
pointed out to him, the glimpse of old-world ways at the well, the
gracious courtesy of the fair damsel, and the simple devoutness of the
speaker, who recognises in what to others were trivial commonplaces
God's guidance to the end which He had appointed, his recognition of
the divine hand moving beneath all the nothings and littlenesses of
daily life--may teach us much.
1. The first thing that these words seem to me to suggest is the
conditions under which we may be sure that God leads--'I being in the
way.'
Now, of course, some of you may know that the words of our text are, by
the Revised Version and others, rendered so as to obliterate the clause
telling where the speaker was when the Lord led him, and to make the
whole a continuous expression of the one fact--'As for me, the Lord
hath led me in the way to the house of my master's brethren.' The
literal rendering is, 'I in the way, Jehovah led me.' No doubt the
Hebrew idiom admits of the 'I' being thus emphatically premised, and
then repeated as 'me' after the verb, and possibly no more is to be
made of the words than that. But the fuller and more impressive meaning
is possible, and I venture to retain it, and to see in it the
expression of the truth that it is when we are 'in the way' that God
will certainly lead us.
So that suggests, first, how the people that have any right to expect
any kind of guidance from God are those who have their feet upon a path
which conscience approves. Many men run into all manner of perplexities
by their own folly and self-will, and never ask whether their acts are
right or wrong, wise or foolish, until they begin to taste the bitter
consequences. Then they cry to God to help them, and think themselves
very religious because they do. That is not the way to get God's help.
Such folk are like Italian brigands who had an image of the Virgin in
their hats, and sometimes had the Pope's commission in their pockets,
and therefore went out to murder and ravish, in sure and certain hope
of God's favour and protection.
But when we are 'in the way,' and know that we are doing what we ought
to do, and conscience says, 'Go on; never mind what stands against
you,' it is then, and only then, that we have a right to be sure that
the Lord will lead us. Otherwise, the best thing that can happen to us
is that the Lord should thwart us when we are on the wrong road.
Resistance, indeed, may be guidance; and it is often God's manner of
setting our feet in the way of His steps. We have no claim on Him for
guidance, indeed, unless we have submitted ourselves to His
commandments; yet His mercies go beyond our claims. Just as the
obedient child gets guidance, so the petulant and disobedient child
gets resistance, which is guidance too. The angel of the Lord stands in
front of Balaam, amongst the vines, though the seer sometimes does not
see, and blocks the path for him, and hedges up the way with his
flaming sword. Only, if we would have the sweet, gracious,
companionable guidance of our Lord, let us be sure, to begin with, that
we are 'in the way,' and not in any of the bypaths into which arrogance
and self-will and fleshly desires and the like are only too apt to
divert our feet.
Another consideration suggested by these words, 'I being in the way,'
is that if we expect guidance we must diligently do present duty. We
are led, thank God, by one step at a time. He does with His child, whom
He is teaching to read His will, as we sometimes do with our children,
when we are occupied in teaching them their first book-learning: we
cover the page up, all but the line that we want them to concentrate
their eyes upon; and then, when they have got to the end of that, slip
the hand down, low enough to allow the next line to come into view. So
often God does with us. One thing at a time is enough for the little
brains. And this is the condition of mortal life, for the most
part--though there do come rare exceptions. Not that we have to look a
long way ahead, and forecast what we shall do this time ten years off,
or to make decisions that involve a distant future--except once or
twice in a lifetime--but that we have to settle what is to be done in
this flying minute, and in the one adjacent to it. 'Do the duty that
lies nearest thee,' and the remoter duty will become clearer. There is
nothing that has more power to make a man's path plain before his feet
than that he should concentrate his better self on the manful and
complete discharge of the present moment's service. And, on the other
hand, there is nothing that will so fill our sky with mists, and blur
the marks of the faint track through the moor, as present negligence,
or still more, present sin. Iron in a ship's hull makes the magnet
tremble, and point away from its true source. He that has complied with
evil to-day is the less capable of discerning duty to-morrow; and he
that does all the duty that he knows will thereby increase the
probability that he will know all that he needs. 'If any man wills to
do His will, he shall know of the teaching'--enough, at any rate, to
direct his steps.
But there is another lesson still in the words; and that is that, if we
are to be guided, we must see to it that we expect and obey the
guidance.
This servant of Abraham's, with a very imperfect knowledge of the
divine will, had, when he set out on his road, prayed very earnestly
that God would lead him. He had ventured to prescribe a certain token,
naïve in its simplicity: 'If the girl drops her pitcher, and gives us
drink gladly, and does not grudge to fill the troughs for the cattle,
that will show that she is of a good sort, and will make the right wife
for Isaac.' He had prayed thus, and he was ready to accept whomsoever
God so designated. He had not made up his mind, 'Bethuel's daughter is
a relation of my master's, and so she will be a suitable wife for his
son.' He left it all with God, and then he went straight on his road,
and was perfectly sure that he would get the guidance that he had
sought. And when it came the good man bowed and obeyed.
Now there is a picture for us all. There are many people that say, 'O
Lord! guide me.' when all the while they mean, 'Let me guide Thee.'
They are perfectly willing to accept the faintest and moat questionable
indications that may seem to point down the road where their
inclination drives them, and like Lord Nelson at Copenhagen, will put
the telescope to the blind eye when the flag is flying at the admiral's
peak, signalling 'Come out of action,' because they are determined to
stay where they are.
Do not let us forget that the first condition of securing real guidance
in our daily life is to ask it, and that the next is to look for it,
and that a third is to be quite willing to accept it, whether the
finger points down the broad road that we would like to go upon, or
through some tangled path amongst the brushwood that we would fain
avoid. And if you and I, dear brethren, in the littlenesses of our
daily life, do fulfil these conditions, the heavens will crumble, and
earth will melt, before God will leave His child untaught in the way in
which he should go.
Only, let us be patient. Do you remember what Joshua said to the
Israelites? 'Let there be a good space of vacant ground between you and
the guiding ark, that you may know by which way you ought to go.' When
men precipitately press on the heels of half-disclosed providences,
they are uncommonly apt to mistake the road. We must wait till we are
sure of God's will before we try to do it. If we are not sure of what
He would have us do, then, for the present, He would have us do nothing
until He speaks. 'I being in the way, the Lord led me.'