Psalm 25:1 Unto thee, O LORD, do I lift up my soul.
Don’t you want to know where God wants you to be tomorrow? Don’t you want God’s guidance in your life today? Psalms 25 is a psalm that reminds us that God guides the willing. A lot of people can’t find God’s guidance and for the same reason a thief can’t find a policeman, which is to say, they don’t really want to. That may sound cruel to some, but the fact is that God will guide any seeking, searching, submissive heart.
Psalms 25:1 says, “Unto thee, O LORD, do I lift up my soul.” David is saying, “God, I am lifting up my very life, my soul. I lift it up to you.” Throughout the psalm you find the psalmist making appeals to God in light of Who God is and in light of his own weakness. “Unto thee, O LORD, do I lift up my soul.” In verse 4 he says, “Shew me thy ways, teach me thy paths. “ In verse 5 he says, “Lead me.” In verse 9 he says, “Guide [me] in judgment.” That means, “Help me to have discernment, and help me to know what is right and wrong and have a clue about life.” In verse 10 he mentions the “paths of the LORD.” In verse 12 he says that God will “teach in the way that he shall choose.” He is saying, “Teach me the way that you choose, God.”
In verse 15 the psalmist asks God to “pluck my feet out of the net,” that is, “help me to go the right way and not be caught up in a trap.” In verse 17 he says, “Bring thou me out of my distresses.” This is the context for so many of the psalms, “God, help!” Verse 22 says, “Redeem Israel…out of all his troubles.” So, “out” is directional. It is the idea of bringing me from where I am to where I need to be. All of this speaks for God’s guidance, and God guides the willing. Verse 15 says, “Mine eyes are ever toward the Lord.” Psalms 5 says, “In the morning will I…look up.” So, in the morning, evening, and throughout the day, look up. Some of us have a bad outlook and we need to not look within, but up to God because God guides the willing.
One morning I was at my kitchen sink. It was just getting light, and I was making breakfast. I felt a pair of eyes on me. I looked down, and there was my dog. She was looking up very intently. Now, she loves me, I think, but what she really loves is food. She knows that what she needs is provided by the one who provides. If I put a treat on the floor before my dog and say, “Wait for it…,” she will. But she is looking very intently, not at the treat, but at me because she knows that I am the one who provides the treat.
About the same minute I looked right ahead and there was my cat on the windowsill where she comes every morning. She was looking through the kitchen window at me and my breakfast. She was waiting on me. Then, I looked beyond my cat about a hundred yards to see five to seven horses we have pastured in the front lot. They were all patiently waiting. They were waiting for the one who was going to bring their provision for the day. So, all these were looking to the one who could provide. Likewise, “mine eyes are ever toward the Lord,” the psalmist says.
Today, you don’t have to know the future if you know the One Who does. You can rest tonight assured that tomorrow God will always guide the willing.