God's leadership

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DaneClark

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Okay, hypothetical situation, I’ll try to explain it the best that I can.

A person believes that something is meant to be. He prays about it constantly telling God how much he believes that it is meant to be. If the person has been praying about the situation constantly, would God allow something to happen that would encourage the person to keep believing that it was meant to be if it really wasn’t?
 
Perhaps, but then again what “happened” could be dumb luck.
I don’t think God controls our lives like the author of a book wood his characters.
 
Good questions lately, Dane. I can see you are truly a man after God’s own heart. 😉

This is sometimes a puzzle to me also. God habitually leads a person by the desires of his heart, especially strong ones that persist. When it is important, He confirms it through a word or a person in such a way that you KNOW it is a confirmation of your original inspiration. The only thing I have problems with is the time factor. While the message may be essentially true and “meant to be,” as you put it, very often we don’t seen the fulfillment immediately, but many months, or even years later.

We know this to be the case with Abraham, who received the promise of a son many years before Sarah conceived, yet God kept reaffirming the message. I have never understood why God doesn’t just let us know of the matter when it is nearly time for fulfillment. 🤷 OTOH, I have received inspirations that were prophetic for another person, and the fulfillment was on time.
 
Here’s some more info. Once again, I’ll try to explain it the best that I can.

-The thing that the person thinks is encouraging him to keep believing is something that he wanted to happen, but was afraid to pray for because he thought it would be selfish
-The thing that happened that the person thinks is encouraging him to keep brought him a great deal of piece when it happened, because beforehand he had been worrying about it constantly
-The thing that happened that the person thinks is encouraging him to keep believing makes him want the think he wants to know is meant to be even more, and he believes that if it’s not meant to be, than the thing that happened just makes things harder for him.
-The person feels that, if it were meant to be, then the thing that happened makes it easier to believe that God is listening to him.
 
One of my books on guidance talks about the necessity of having three harbor lights line up so the vessel can safely make it through the channel. If the ship is askew, and only two lights are visible, the captain is off course and must realign the direction of the ship. I’ve always appreciated that analogy.

The lights are these:
  • The word of God. We cannot lawfully desire something that God forbids in His word.
  • The peace of the Holy Spirit, which you said was already present.
  • Circumstances must line up and help us move forward in fulfilling God’s will.
Have you asked God to confirm your guidance through a sign or with the wise counsel of someone you trust? The peace is a good sign so far, but ask God to help you by manifesting His good pleasure in a more specific confirmation.

So far, the only thing missing is the circumstances not being fulfilled. If it is from God, you need to let Him work out the details in His providence, and that may take time, and that is where the confirmation will be necessary in order to help you hang on. Abraham was given confirmation, but he became weary of waiting and took his slave girl instead of holding on to the promise. It is easy to think we may have made a mistake with regard our initial guidance, and try to work out plan B instead.
 
Sirach2 said:
*]Circumstances must line up and help us move forward in fulfilling God’s will.
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Believing that this particular thing was meant to be caused me to grow closer to God and inspired me to be a less sinful person. Is that a good sign?
 
I would say so. If it was not in God’s will, you would have received interior warnings or else a series of circumstances to pull away from that intention. If peace prevails, stay with “praying it through.”
 
I just came home from mass, and as I prayed the Joyful mysteries of the rosary before mass began, I happened to think of you at the 4th mystery - the Presentation of Our Lord. In that mystery, we remember holy Simeon who was given a promise by the Holy Spirit that he would not die without seeing the Messiah. Each day as he came to the temple, I believe he must have wondered, “Is this the day I will see Him?”

And yet we know from scripture, that Simeon did see the Lord as was promised to him. It just took time to be manifest. I hope this blesses you to think of this mystery, and perhaps you might pray to St. Simeon and use the canticle he proclaimed after the promise was fulfilled for him.
 
The most important thing to do is make Trial by Bible. Pray heavily and with great absorption in contemplating God’s love for us, and ask Him to bless your attempts to find the Truth. Ask Him to guide your hand in opening the Bible, and Gabriel’s help in opening the page to the Truth. Once you open the Bible to an unseen page, you must cross yourself and think of the summit of His Holiness, and then point blindly to a verse in The Book. When you open your eyes, God will have put your finger down to a fitting passage. This is not some Medieval superstition, but a tested method of holy inspiration and Love from the Most High. He does not want us to starve in spiritual anguish, but to know His intentions!

Even if your finger comes to a very mysterious verse, it will manifest itself in your life. If you pray to God fervently beforehand, and truly trust the Trial will change you, He will work. This little, apparently trivial prayer reveals God’s infinite glory. You know, even if you arrive at a passage that is totally unrelated to your problems, you will find that it will crop up in your life in the days or weeks after you placed your trust in God. Someone may quote Isaiah 45:X after your finger had found its way there not three days before. There is always meaning, and God leads in every nook and cranny, and in every sinner, no matter how evil, for He loves us beyond all the physical matter of existence.

His poor little children are the pride and joy of the Father. Don’t ever think he has abdicated His throne over your little kingdom.
 
Once you open the Bible to an unseen page, you must cross yourself and think of the summit of His Holiness, and then point blindly to a verse in The Book. When you open your eyes, God will have put your finger down to a fitting passage.
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I strongly disagree with this advice. In fact, this “button-pushing” is specifically mentioned in my guidance book as something we must never do. The example may be comical, but it demonstrates a point.

A certain man wanted to leave his wife and marry his new lover named Grace (which is a red flag because it disagrees with God’s word). He went in prayer saying to God that if it is His will that he marry Grace, show him a scripture when he opens the bible and puts his finger on a verse. He landed on this verse: “GRACE and peace be unto to you, in the name of the Lord Jesus Christ.” :whacky:

God does not guide us in this manner.
 
Sirach2 said:
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God does not guide us in this manner.
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Oh dear me… that will never do, will it? 😛 I apologise for my faulty advice. Perhaps I should withhold such speculation until I am baptised. 😊 It just happens to have worked very well for me in the past, and it was not something at all like what I expected it would be. Cognitive dissonance is one of the best reasons to trust something when it gives you advice, hehe.

If we are not to be guided by God in this manner, how shall we be guided by God? I certainly don’t hear His voice in my head, or around my ears. The Word is the Bible, and in that is surely our guidance… but how can we know where to start on a particular day? Does it not serve us well to open the Bible randomly and begin reading, or should we bind ourselves to certain sections each day? God does not seem to guide us in any other manner, except through our conscience, via the little compunction he puts into us.
 
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