Talk about leading! Could it really be the leading of God that these lines are currently being read and is it really God’s leading that this was put to paper at a different time? Was it not more a combination of circumstances or should we even say that it is more the planning of man than it is the leading of God?

Is it not too ambitious to involve God in such “small” and very “mundane” things? Is God not too high and too exalted for him to be occupied with such matters? Are you allowed to speak of his leading in the matters of everyday life?

Some people believe that if God is even involved in this, he is only involved in the larger matters.

One could think then of a director of a large company. In the leadership he concentrates primarily on the main issues and needs to be a good manager. He must leave a lot to his personnel. For that reason, he carefully selects his people. He often leaves it to others, who also carry the responsibility for this. His personnel must be trustworthy and innovative. His people must make the best of it. The executives should be able to count on an overall commitment.

Should we not also similarly think about God when it comes to his leading in your life? You cannot imagine that every tiny detail goes by God’s hand? Let’s imagine that someone reads a portion from a daily journal. This journal was written quite some time ago. But on the very day on which someone reads a passage, it says: should you not visit him or her sometime? You are abroad, but distill from the passage read that you are to visit someone in your current location. You go there and find someone very ill. Is this just “dumb coincidence” or is God’s leading a part of this?

Would God really be involved in everything? Does he truly have his hand in all things?

Many Questions⤒🔗

When we talk about God’s leading, we are confronted with very many questions. Questions you do not always have the answers for. Questions that can make you feel embarrassed, and questions that make you dumbfounded, when others pose them to us. What should you answer to these well thought-through and complicated questions?

You can say that it is God’s leading that you were born as a boy or as a girl, but is that really true? If a boy falls in love with a girl, is it so she must assume that it is God’s leading that she meets him, and should she then conclude that it is God’s leading that she must marry him, even if she does not really care much about him? And, if you both fall in love, but it does not grow into true love, or it is only true love for one of the two, is it then still God’s leading that you met each other? And would it be “expected” that you marry each other? You do not fall in love “just like that,” do you? Is there perhaps “something” behind all this?

Subsequently you can ask yourself if it is God’s leading that someone chose specific subjects and therefore pursued this direction of studies? And if you are being retrained later and get a completely different job, is that then also God’s leading? Or is that more our miscalculation or perhaps just an adaptation to a change in society?

Is it really true that God so leads us that we get married and that God also leads us when we do not get married? Are there not many more human sides to this? And you could go on and on like this. Is it really God’s leading that in the one family many children are being born and that the other couple remains without children?

Questions such as these can be multiplied endlessly. It would not be difficult to make up a whole list and to make the questions even more complicated. Life is full of questions. We are regularly confronted with questions and often we do not have the answers. That is why it is very tempting to then just ignore these questions and not to be absorbed by them. It only makes you tired, some people think. And what do you gain from it?

And yet, if people do not address your questions in a serious manner, it gives you an unpleasant feeling. You think that others do not take you seriously. For you are left with something unresolved, and sometimes with huge questions.

Sometimes you can get bothered by people who live very superficially and who never seem to think through anything.

When people leave you stranded in the cold, there is a real danger that you will look for answers “somewhere else” and you can then easily end up in the world of the occult. For very substantial questions can very much occupy your life, more than anyone may suspect. If only I knew … that God leads us in all things and that he leads this way!

And on the other hand, it can be “dizzying” to always and everywhere assume that God is leading you. Are we not saying too much here?

Question Marks←⤒🔗

The questions become even more so like question marks when we cannot believe that God is leading our life. Very many people find it increasingly troublesome to see God’s hand in everything. Just one “example” to illustrate this trouble.

Someone drinks too much, and subsequently does not remember which vehicle he came in, then steals a car and races through the city, thinking that the roads are wide and that it is a lot of fun to take the corners like this now. Then something terrible happens. He loses control in a corner, hits a streetlight post, but even worse, he hits a mother with child, who are killed instantly. What does this crime have to do with God’s leading, many people ask themselves. Can you then still say that the Lord has taken (them)?

It is completely clear that this man goes against every commandment of God and totally goes against God. His deeds are one by one misdeeds. He is being more led by the devil than by God. He is working for the devil, you could say.

Someone who fears the Lord can also be left with many question marks. Question marks that accompany you throughout your whole life because you do not understand anything about God’s leading, while you firmly believe that God leads and steers all things. And that God is good (Ps. 73:1).

The one person has more trouble with this than the other, but also if you humble yourself reverently before God, you often are unable to explain it.

Why must a young mother of a family die? You can truly believe that the leading of God she sought and found the Lord in her severe illness. But further, so many question marks remain, even more so when you see what happens with this family.

If a physician makes a wrong diagnosis and underestimates certain complaints, and a God-fearing mother of a growing family gets a brain hemorrhage and does not wake up, then a child of God believes that God leads these things, right through all of this. And still many question marks remain, if we see how God leads the things in our lives.

Other Factors←⤒🔗

Should we not consider many other factors, or only other factors in all these happenings? Can you ascribe everything just to God leading us? Or is that going too far?

We do have to deal with hereditary factors, through which an illness arises, sometimes right away at birth, but more often at a later age. How is it that in the one family this illness surfaces repeatedly and that another family is seemingly very strong? Is life not influenced by things like the upbringing, the environment, eating and drinking, and more of these things? It makes a big difference if you are born in a poor country and your survival chances are slim or if you are surrounded from all sides by all imaginable care. Is it then not just a fact that the one enjoys the favourable side of life and is lucky, while the other one is found in a corner, enduring the blows? Just by the mere fact as to where you are born and under what circumstances.

When we more and more participate in today’s traffic and thus increase the possibility of a disaster, can you then ascribe this to God’s leading? If a ferry disappears in the depths of the sea and you never see your loved one again, is this then God’s leading; or is it then just His leading that you missed the boat?

When you cannot breathe due to air pollution, which factors then play a role with everything that is in the air and especially what is released into the air? Should you also in such cases, where man is busy with his “opportunities,” ascribe everything to God’s leading?

We could ask a thousand questions like this. Even more so, as quite a few people have the greatest difficulty to speak of God’s leading.

The one is rebellious, the other one suffers and succumbs. The one is cast down throughout his life, the other one swears and turns away from God, because accepting God’s leading seems impossible. And who is not troubled by this at times? Who does not feel the isolation, because no one understands your questions, and there are few people who really address your questions and bring you along in a loving leading, in a talk from heart-to-heart.

But the question still remains: does God lead your life like this?

Sure enough!

But, how?

This article was translated by Bram Vegter