From J.I. Packer’s, Knowing God,
Chapter 20, “Thou Our Guide”
Earnest Christians seeking guidance often go wrong about it. Why is this? Often the reason is that their notion of the nature and method of divine guidance is distorted. They look for a will-o’-the-wisp; they overlook the guidance that is ready to hand, and lay themselves open to all sorts of delusions. Their basic mistake is to think of guidance as essentially inward prompting by the Holy Spirit, apart from the written Word. This idea, which is as old as the false prophets of the Old Testament and as new as the Oxford Group and Moral Re-Armament, is a seed-bed in which all forms of fanaticism and folly can grow.
How do thoughtful Christians come to make this mistake? What seems to happen is this. They hear the word ‘guidance’, and think at once of a particular class of ‘guidance problems’ – on which, perhaps, the books they have read, and the testimonies they have heard tended to harp exclusively. This is the class of problems concerned with what we may call ‘vocational choices’ – choices, that is, between competing options, all of which in themselves appear lawful and good. Examples are: should I contemplate marriage, or not? should I marry this person, or not? should we aim at having another child? should I join this church, or that one? should I serve God in the land of my upbringing, or abroad? which of the professions open to me should I follow? which of the jobs open to me in my profession should I take? is my present sphere of work the right one to stay in? what claim has this person, or cause, on my care, energies, and generosity? which claims on my voluntary service time should have priority? – and so forth.
Naturally, because they shape our lives so decisively, and mean so much for joy or sorrow, we think a lot about ‘vocational choices’, and it is right that we should. But what is not right is to jump to the conclusion that, in the last analysis, all guidance problems are of this one type. Here, as it seems, is the root of the mistake.
Two features about divine guidance in the case of ‘vocational choices’ are distinctive. Both follow from the nature of the situation itself. First, these problems cannot be resolved by a direct application of biblical teaching. All one can do from Scripture is circumscribe the lawful possibilities between which the choice has to be made. (No biblical text, for instance, told the present writer to propose to the lady who is now his wife, or to seek ordination, or to start his ministry in England, or to buy his large old car.)
Second, just because Scripture cannot decide one’s choice directly, the factor of God-given prompting and inclination, whereby one is drawn to commit oneself to one set of responsibilities rather than another, and finds one’s mind settled in peace as one contemplates them, becomes decisive. The basis of the mistake which we are trying to detect is to assume, first, that all guidance problems have these same two characteristics, and, second, that all life should be treated as a field in which this kind of guidance should be sought.
The consequences of this mistake among earnest Christians have been both comic and tragic. The idea of a life in which the inward voice of the Spirit decides and directs everything sounds most attractive, for it seems to exalt the Spirit’s ministry and to promise the closest intimacy with God; but in practice this quest for super-spirituality leads only to frantic bewilderment or lunacy.
To read two full chapters of the book, ch.10 “God’s Wisdom and Ours,” and ch.20 “Thou Our Guide”: http://www.newwestcommunitychurch.com/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/Packer-Knowing-God-Wisdom-chapters.pdf