There was no miracle, no supernatural voice, no pillar of cloud or
fire, no hovering glory round the head of the village maiden. All the
indications were perfectly natural and trivial. A thousand girls had
gone to the wells that day all about Haran and done the very same
things that Rebekah did. But the devout man who had prayed for
guidance, and was sure that he was getting it, was guided by her most
simple, commonplace act; and that is how we are usually to be guided.
God leaves a great deal to our common sense. His way of speaking to
common sense is by very common things. If any of us fancy that some
glow at the heart, some sudden flash as of inspiration, is the test of
a divine commandment, we have yet to learn the full meaning of the
Incarnation of Jesus Christ. For that Incarnation, amongst all its
other mighty influences, hallowed the commonest things of life and
turned them into ministers of God's purposes. So remember, God's
guidance may come to you through so insignificant a girl as Rebekah. It
may come to you through as commonplace an incident as tipping the water
of a spring out of an earthen pot into a stone trough. None the less is
it God's guidance; and what we want is the eye to see it. He will guide
us by very common indications of His providence.
3. And now, the last thing that I would say a word about is the
realisation in daily life of this guidance as a plain actual fact.
This anonymous trusted servant of Abraham's, whose name we should like
to have known, had a mere segment of the full orb of the knowledge of
God that shines upon our path. With true Oriental freedom to speak
about the deepest matters, he was not afraid nor ashamed to stand
before Bethuel and Laban, and all these other strangers that crowded
round the doorway, and say, 'The Lord led me.' There is a pattern for
some of us tongue-tied, shamefaced Christians. Whatever may be the
truth about the degradations of which heathen religion is full, there
is a great deal in heathen religion that ought to teach, and does
teach, Christendom a lesson, as to willingness to recognise and to
confess God's working in daily life. It may be very superficial; it may
be very little connected with high morality; but so far as it goes it
is a thousand-fold better than the dumb religion that characterises
such hosts of Christian people.
A realisation of the divine guidance is the talisman that makes crooked
things straight and rough places plain; that brings peace and calmness
into our hearts, amid all changes, losses, and sorrows. If we hold fast
by that faith, it will interpret for us the mysterious in the
providences concerning our own lives, and will help us to feel that, as
I said, resistance to our progress may be true guidance, and thwarting
our wills may be our highest good. For the road which we travel should,
in all its turnings, lead us to God; and whatsoever guides us to Him is
only and always blessed.
May I, for one moment, turn these words in another direction, and
remind you, dear friends, of how the sublimest application of them is
still to be realised? As a climber on a mountain-peak may look down the
vale up which he had painfully toiled for many days and see the dusty
path lying, like a sinuous snake, down all along it, so, when we get up
yonder, 'Thou shalt remember all the way by which the Lord thy God hath
led thee these many years in the wilderness,' and shalt see the green
pastures and the still waters, valleys of the shadow of death, and
burning roads with sharp flints, which have all brought thee hither at
last. We shall know then what we believe now, that the Lord does indeed
go before them who desire to follow Him, and that the God of Israel is
their reward. Then we shall say with deepened thankfulness, deepened by
complete understanding of life here, seen in the light of its attained
end, 'I being in the way, the Lord led me,' and 'I shall dwell in the
house of the Lord for ever.'