Being Led

When I was young, I was lucky to have a loving father who was very wise. He would often give me advice and as I look back, I see something interesting. When I was a young child, I listened to my father’s advice and followed it without hesitation. When I was a teenager, I only listened to his advice some of the time. And after leaving home as a young man, I stopped asking for his advice altogether, which led me to make a lot of painful mistakes that robbed me of my joy.

Why is it so hard for most of us to listen to the advice of others? Especially when the advice comes from someone who loves us. And what if the advice is coming from our heavenly Father? How can we recognize that it is happening, and how do we really know we are being led in the right direction? That’s a question my wife posed to me recently after we came home from spending time with a friend we hadn’t seen in a while.

The friend I speak of is someone who has lived a good life and has always been a good person. He treats people with respect, has been very successful in business, and has a ton of friends. And yet he has always seemed to have a lot of stress and worry in his life. Recently, he told us he connected with God on a much more personal level, and now believes he is being led by God. He was happy and smiling when he told us, and he seemed more relaxed than I’ve ever seen him. Happy, smiling, relaxed, and very excited about the new direction in his life. Just listening to him made my wife and I smile because his passion and enthusiasm were infectious.

And that got me thinking… We won’t always know if the advice we are being given is good advice or not. But if we consider the source, such as a loving spouse, a wise mother or father, or especially our heavenly Father, and if we listen with an open mind powered by a loving heart, we just might become infected… with joy!

God enters by a private door into every individual.

~ Ralph Waldo Emerson