How can I experience God’s guidance?

Numbers 9:17Whenever the cloud lifted from over the sacred tent, the people of Israel would break camp and follow it. And wherever the cloud settled, the people of Israel would set up camp.

Proverbs 3:5-6Trust in the Lord with all your heart; do not depend on your own understanding. Seek his will in all you do, and he will show you which path to take.

The first step in guidance is knowing where to put our trust. Travelers rely on an accurate map or GPS when they don’t know where they are going. A critically ill person relies on the medical expert who knows the proper treatment. In the same way, believers realize our own spiritual limitations and rely on God’s Word, life’s instruction manual, in matters of faith. We do not understand all the complexities of life, but the Lord does. We can trust him to guide us to find and recognize what is true.

Matthew 7:7-11“Keep on asking, and you will receive what you ask for. Keep on seeking, and you will find. Keep on knocking, and the door will be opened to you. For everyone who asks, receives. Everyone who seeks, finds. And to everyone who knocks, the door will be opened. “You parents—if your children ask for a loaf of bread, do you give them a stone instead? Or if they ask for a fish, do you give them a snake? Of course not! So if you sinful people know how to give good gifts to your children, how much more will your heavenly Father give good gifts to those who ask him.”

God invites us to pray—to go directly to him—so that we will know him more fully as our loving Father and understand ourselves more clearly as well. Even as a parent gives more and more responsibility to a child as he or she grows, so the Lord expects us to take responsibility for seeking and following his direction.