“I will instruct you and teach you in the way you should go; I will counsel you with my eye upon you.” Psalm 32:8
Elizabeth Elliot, the wife of Jim Elliot who was killed in 1956 while attempting to make missionary contact with the Auca people of eastern Ecuador, tells of two adventurers who stopped by to see her.
They were loaded with equipment for the rain forest east of the Andes. They sought no advice, just a few phrases to converse with the Indians.
Elizabeth writes, “Sometimes we come to God as the two adventurers came to me -- confident and, we think, well-informed and well equipped. But has it occurred to us that with all our accumulation of stuff, something is missing?”
King Saul was the first king of Israel. The man had much potential. He was tall, strong, handsome and came from a good family. Anointed by the prophet Samuel, Saul had all the equipment needed to fulfil the role of king, yet he lacked one thing – obedience to the instructions of God. If only he had surrendered his ways to the Lord God and trusted in the counsel of the Almighty.
The adventurers who approached Elizabeth Elliot were zealous and keen to contact the tribes of the Andes. They sought no instruction from the missionary’s wife only further tools to add to their arsenal. Without her advice, they were susceptible to being savagely killed as her husband was. They might have been loaded with equipment, but they lacked one item – the counsel of one who knew the way.
If you acknowledge the counsel of the Lord in all your ways, he will direct your life’s track. Only then will his eye be upon you. Only with his eye upon you will you be fully equipped for the great adventure that is your life.