And the Lord will guide you continually and satisfy your desire in scorched places and make your bones strong; and you shall be like a watered garden, like a spring of water whose waters do not fail. Isaiah 58:11
Randy and I have been fortunate to travel to some pretty spectacular places, and no matter where we are, we usually try to schedule at least one guided tour. Most of the guides are knowledgeable and usually end up educating you far better than you could ever do on your own.
If the guide is experienced, they usually begin the tour with an introduction of themselves, a overview of the tour, and a plea to be prompt and please stay close to your guide.
The main problem guides encounter is that tourists get caught up in what they are seeing and they wander away. For this reason, many guides carry large sticks with different colored flags or numbers on them so tourists can find them in the crowd. In large crowds, their constant plea is please watch for pick pockets and stay close to me.
While the guides are focused, experienced, and familiar with their surroundings, tourists are often none of these things, and when they tend to wander away from the group, the guide must bring them back.
As Christians, it’s easy to wander away from the values we have been taught and the life we know is the right one. It’s almost like a pickpocket comes and steals away some of our dearest values, and we don’t even realize they are gone until it’s too late.
If we don’t stay close to our guide, we can suddenly find that our faith, our love for God, and our peace is gone. We’ve let ourselves wander away from the teachings of the Bible, our prayer life, and our inner peace. God asks us to “return to the Shepherd and Guardian of your soul.” (1 Peter 2:25)
In this crazy world of ours where so many things compete for our attention, we can find that, like the tourist, we look up and find that we’ve lost God in our lives. The comforting thing is that God hasn’t gone anywhere, He’s right there, but we have to find Him again in the midst of all that’s going on around us.
When we set out on a tour, often times we don’t know as much as we’d like to, but the guide will give us knowledge as well as guidance. Likewise, we as Christians don’t know all we should, but if we stay close to our guide, He’ll be glad to teach us. Just like the tour guide who begs us to stay close, God tells us that He will show us the way back to Him if we will only watch and listen.
The point is best illustrated in the verse from Come Thou Fount of Every Blessing by Robert Robinson: Prone to wander, Lord, I feel it; Prone to leave the God I love; Take my heart, oh take it seal it; Seal it for Thy courts above.
Stay close to Your Guide.