Thus it was with Israel, and thus it should be with us. We are passing through a trackless desert—a moral wilderness. There is absolutely no way. We should not know how to walk, or where to go, were it not for that one most precious, most deep, most comprehensive sentence which fell from the lips of our blessed Lord, “_I am the way_.” Here is divine, infallible guidance. We are to follow Him. “I am the light of the world: he that followeth Me shall not walk in darkness, but shall have the light of life.” (John viii.) This is living guidance. It is not acting according to the letter of certain rules and regulations; it is following a living Christ—walking as He walked, doing as He did, imitating His example in all things. This is Christian movement—Christian action. It is keeping the eye fixed upon Jesus, and having the features, traits, and lineaments of His character imprinted on our new nature, and reflected back or reproduced in our daily life and ways. Now this will assuredly involve the surrender of our own will, our own plans, our own management, altogether. We must follow the cloud: we must wait _ever_, wait _only_, upon God. We cannot say, We shall go here or there, do this or that, to-morrow, or next week. All our movements must be placed under the regulating power of that one commanding sentence (often, alas! lightly penned and uttered by us), “_If the Lord will_.” Oh that we better understood all this! Would that we knew more perfectly the meaning of divine guidance! How often do we vainly imagine, and confidently assert, that the cloud is moving in that very direction which suits the bent of our inclination! We want to do a certain thing, or make a certain movement, and we seek to persuade ourselves that our will is the will of God. Thus, instead of being divinely guided, we are self-deceived. Our will is unbroken, and hence we cannot be guided aright; for the real secret of being rightly guided—guided of God—is to have our own will thoroughly subdued. “The meek will He guide in judgment; and the meek will He teach _His way_.” And again, “I will guide thee with Mine eye.” But let us ponder the admonition, “Be ye not as the horse, or as the mule, which have no understanding; whose mouth must be held in with bit and bridle, lest they come near unto thee.” (Ps. xxxii.) If the countenance be turned upwards, to catch the movement of the divine “eye,” we shall not need the “bit and bridle.” But here is precisely the point in which we so sadly fail. We do not live sufficiently near to God to discern the movement of His eye. The will is at work. We want to have our own way, and hence we are left to reap the bitter fruits thereof. Thus it was with Jonah. He was told to go to Nineveh, but he wanted to go to Tarshish; and circumstances seemed to favor; providence seemed to point in the direction of his will. But, ah! he had to find his place in the belly of the whale—yea, in “the belly of hell” itself, where “the