Many of us have known the great benefit of having a mentor in life, someone who can Help us along and show us the ropes, whether in school, sports, our profession, or in some cases, even in our roles as spouse or parent. Often mentors don’t realize they are serving as our guides. We might sometimes identify a person we admire and try to model our own behavior on what we see them doing.
But the more powerful influences come from those guides and mentors who help us by providing direct counsel and assistance in the circumstances we encounter in our lives. These are individuals with the Wisdom to help us see our way through and confirm we are pursuing a path leading to success.
In the Spiritual life each of us has a mentor or Helper who our Heavenly Father provided to us. Indeed, this is someone who was promised to us by Jesus Himself, just before He ascended to the Father.
“But the Helper, the Holy Spirit, whom the Father will send in my name, will teach you all things and remind you of everything that I have told you.” (John 14:26)
Perhaps even more important than the guidance the Holy Spirit provides is the genuine peace we can begin to experience in the events of life, if we will only learn to turn our lives over to the Holy Spirit.
“Peace I leave with you; my peace I give you. I do not give to you as the world gives. Do not let your hearts be troubled and do not be afraid.” (John 14:27)
How many of us would like to lead less troubled lives, lives full of peace, lives that are not constantly assaulted by the fears we so often experience in our day-to-day circumstances?
We have all been given the means of experiencing this life of peace, but do we fully embrace it? The real question is, do we take the time and make the effort to allow this Helper, the Holy Spirit, to guide our lives? Have we established a consistent process for seeking the assistance we need and desire?
Consider, how many times in our lives we struggle, fret and worry over a situation or a decision that we need to make; and yet we don’t take the time to seek the guidance of our number one Helper or Advocate (another word scripture uses to describe the Holy Spirit’s role in our life). Why is this…?
The reason for our failure to seek the advice of our Counselor often stems from a simple mindset most of us have adopted and employed throughout our entire lives – We want to do what we want to do.
On those occasions where we may decide to seek the Holy Spirit’s Help, Guidance and Counsel, we are not well practiced in knowing just how to ask. Many of us have spent most of our lives with a sense of independence that wants to choose our own way; we want our freedom to do what we want.
Sometimes it is only when we find ourselves in circumstances beyond our control that we are willing to seek the input of the One who has been standing beside us our entire lives, the very One whose Advice and Counsel we may have often neglected to seek.
God gave us His Spirit because we are His very own children, and no loving Father would ever leave His child without the very best Help and Guidance He could provide.
It is true, God will not take away all our trials in life, some of them are necessary for our maturity. They also serve as a motivation to abandon our own path and seek the guidance of the One who always waits to assist us.
We can know we have not sufficiently abandoned ourselves to this guidance when we continue to experience anxiety and fear about our circumstances.
But there is an alternative, because God absolutely wants to remove our slavish fears.
“For those who are led by the Spirit of God are the children of God. The Spirit you received does not make you slaves, so that you live in fear again; rather, the Spirit you received brought about your adoption to sonship. And by him we cry, "Abba, Father." (Romans 8:14-15)
Copyright © 2024, Deacon Mark Danis
Image credit:"Saint Teresa of Avila's Vision of the Holy Spirit," Peter Paul Rubens, Public domain, via WikiArt