Will God Give You Specific Guidance through a Bible Verse?


Recently while preaching on the subject of guidance, I said that the Lord guides us as we spend time between the covers of His book.  That doesn’t mean we always find a specific verse telling us specifically what to do.  It means that as we fellowship with Him in the Scripture, very often certain verses will impart the necessary wisdom we need.  Last night in my bedtime reading I came across an excellent explanation of this.  Dr. V. Raymond Edman, in his little book, He Leadeth Me, pointed out that we can never find a specific verse to guide us in a specific way when we’re looking for it.

The Bible is not a kind of fetish or oracle into which we can glance for a word on guidance.  The Lord may lead us by the first verse we read upon opening the Book, but not necessarily so at all.  In fact, it is the common experience of devout and deeply-taught Christians that to seek a verse on guidance is never to find it. Rather, it is as we read and meditate upon the Word, perhaps in some relatively obscure portion thereof, that we are taught by the Holy Spirit and are led aright in the light thereof. [1. V. Raymond Edman, He Leadeth Me (Wheaton, IL: Scripture Press, 1959), 20]