A prayer for guidance.
"For thy Name's sake … guide me." God leads men, whether they ask him or not. He guides their lives, though they may not know him—even may deny his very existence. Belshazzar (Daniel 5:23, "in whose hand," etc). Cyrus (Isaiah 45:1-5). Heathen nations (Acts 17:26, Acts 17:27). Does this make such a prayer as the text superfluous? On the contrary, it is the very reason for it. God's guidance of men without their knowledge, or even against their will, is very different from his guidance of those who ask it for his Name's sake. (As you speak of "driving a horse," or "driving a friend" who asks a seat by your side.) Consider the meaning and the plea of the psalmist's prayer.
I. WHAT DOES THIS PRAYER ASK FOR? In other words, how can God grant it?
1. By the lending of his providence. Q.d.: his unfailing, unerring, unlimited control of all events and creatures, great or small. The old-fashioned phrase, "particular providence," is often strongly objected to; rightly, if it be taken to mean some special interference with the course of things—here, not there; now, not then; a touch to the helm sectionally, not the firm hand never taken off it. But remember, what cleverest people (busy with wide generalizations and laws) are most apt to forget—that all reality is particular. A pound of iron weighs a pound because each atom of iron is precisely like every other, and obeys exactly the same force. The harvest ripens because the same life is working in every several grain. A lifetime is not made up of weeks and years, but breaths and heart-beats. We must not liken God's knowledge to ours. We are compelled to store ours in abstract ideas, names, laws, etc; just as we arrange books on shelves, with titles on their back—useless else. Divine knowledge, lust because infinite, must take in every movement of every atom. Inconceivable! But not more inconceivable than that God has set going movements at the rate of hundreds of millions of millions in a second, which keep time throughout the universe. And what his power has called into being and sustains, and his knowledge surveys, his wisdom and goodness guide. This, at once deepest truth and plain common sense, is the Bible doctrine of providence. "He maketh grass to grow on the mountains"—each blade from its own root. Not a bird falls to the earth without our heavenly Father. "The steps of a good man are ordered by the Lord "(Psalms 139:3, Psalms 139:9, Psalms 139:10).
2. By his Word. (2 Timothy 3:15; Psalms 119:105.) What is a lamp for? To give light. How do I know that light is light? Simply by its shining. Light is its own evidence. If a lamp cannot be kindled, or, being kindled, refuses to burn, no argument will persuade you that it is a good lamp. If it burns bright and steady, shedding a clear light on the page you read, the work you handle, the path you walk in, no argument will persuade you that it is not a good lamp. So with God's Word. Men may dispute as they please about inspiration, pile up mountains of criticism, publish every few years a new work that is to finally dispose of the Bible; they cannot stop the light from shining. This main fact remains solid, unanswerable, that a life guided by this light rises to a level, gains a purity, strength, beauty, hopeful courage, and calm settled peace not otherwise attainable. The light, observe, not of mere precept. Pagan teachers—Buddha, Confucius, Seneca, and I know not how many, have given noble and lofty precepts, enabling men to say, with the old Roman poet, "I see and approve what is good, though I practise what is bad." But only from the Bible shines, along with precept, the light of pardon and the light of promise (1 John 2:12, 1 John 2:25). Against the sceptics' learning and logic the plain Christian sets his experience. If you could find a grey-haired Christian saying, "I have framed my life according to the Bible, and I wish I had not; I have lived a life of prayer to God, and trust in Jesus as my Saviour, and obedience to his Word, and if I could begin again, I would be wiser,"—then you would at least have something to set against the lives ruined by despising the Bible, and flinging faith and prayer away. But the testimony is the other way (Psalms 119:165; Psalms 19:11; 2 Timothy 4:6-8).
3. By his Spirit. (John 14:13; Romans 8:14.) The Bible itself affords no countenance to the idea that life can be rightly guided by the written Word alone, severed from the living presence and personal teaching of the Holy Spirit. For three plain reasons. A rightly guided life means:
II. WHAT IS THE FORCE OF THE PLEA HERE URGED—"For thy Name's sake" ? If one may venture to put it so plainly, it is putting God on his honour to fulfil his promises. The "Name" of God stands for all that he has made known to us of himself. Especially it includes his words of promise, because here his faithfulness stands pledged. Not that God promises to grant every request, wise or foolish, right or wrong. (Who would dare to pray?) But he does promise to attend to our prayer—to give good things to those who ask. He has filled the Bible with encouragements and commands to pray, and with examples of prayer answered. As our Lord Jesus is himself the full Revelation of the Father, so he authorizes us to pray in his Name (John 14:13, John 14:14).
Conclusion. Of all prayers there is none we need to offer more earnestly, more constantly.
1. Without God's guidance we shall miss our way. A life at the mercy of passion, expediency, fashion, fancy, is like a rudderless ship. Especially in trouble and temptation. The traveller in fair, calm weather may think the mountain-track is plain enough without a guide; but the snowstorm comes on, and he is lost.
2. If God be not your Guide, you will have some other. Conformity to the world is practical submission to the enemy of souls (Ephesians 2:2,
3. "He who bows not to him has bowed to me," Byron's 'Cain'). Like a ship that has taken on board a false pilot, who steers her on the quicksand.
3. Life is a journey to be taken but once. The wrong path cannot be retraced.