Quotes about Guidance

Henri Nouwen once asked Mother Teresa for spiritual direction. Spend one hour each day in adoration of your Lord, she said, and never do anything you know is wrong. Follow this and you'll be fine.

In order to understand how a man receives a wound, you must understand the central truth of a boy's journey to manhood: Masculinity is bestowed. A boy learns who he is and what he's got from a man, or the company of men. He cannot learn it any other place. He cannot learn it from other boys, and he cannot learn it from the world of women.

Mary had Joseph. Esther had Mordecai. Ruth had Boaz. We will not become the women God intends us to be without the guidance, counsel, wisdom, strength, and love of good men in our lives.

We reframe everything by one simple choice: I am accepting God's invitation to become a man. From there we interpret jobs, money, relationships, flat tires, bad dates, even our play time as the context in which the boy is becoming a man. We take an active role, asking our Father to speak to us, speak to our identity, to validate us. We step into our fears and accept "hardship as discipline.

In the middle of the road of my life, I awoke in a dark wood, where the true way was wholly lost.

You're going to be okay. You're going to find your way. You are not alone.

Teach a man a rule and you help him solve a problem; teach a man to walk with God and you help him solve the rest of his life.

You are the son of a kind, strong, and engaged Father, a Father wise enough to guide you in the Way, generous enough to provide for your journey, offering to walk with you every step. This is perhaps the hardest thing for us to believe—really believe, down deep in our hearts, so that it changes us forever, changes the way we approach each day.

And the truth is, quite often God's desire for us will run against the prevailing current. 'Get off the next exit.' His guidance sometimes (often?) seems counter-intuitive.

You are the son of a kind, strong, and engaged Father, a Father wise enough to guide you in the Way, generous enough to provide for your journey. His first act of provision happened before you were even born, when he rescued you through the life, death, and resurrection of our elder brother, Jesus of Nazareth. Then he called you to himself—perhaps is calling you even now—to come home to him through faith in Christ.

To be clear, I am not listening for an audible voice, as I would if you and I were talking. I am listening for his gentle voice within, for that is where Jesus dwells—within our very hearts (Eph. 3:17).

What do you want me to pray for them? Show me what to pray.