I read Psalm 32 right after I had lunch with a new friend, Dr. Maceo Smith, who moved here from the Dallas area about a year ago. Maceo had a career in sales and has been a lay minister for many years. At lunch he said that tries to live Psalm 32.8:
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, ESV)
Maceo said, “If God is guiding you, you’ll be:
- In the right place
- At the right time
- Doing the right thing
- With the right people.”
He applied that positively to sharing the gospel with our server whom he assumed had been brought to him by God for that purpose. He also said it keeps him out of trouble – as a large black man, Maceo said he’s been stopped by the police one time in 20 years and that was for a broken taillight. It was a quick and pleasant conversation, he said. Following God’s guidance, he doesn’t find himself in the wrong place at the wrong time doing the wrong thing with the wrong people!
8 Let me hear in the morning of your steadfast love, for in you I trust. Make me know the way I should go, for to you I lift up my soul.
9 Deliver me from my enemies, O LORD! I have fled to you for refuge.
10 Teach me to do your will, for you are my God! Let your good Spirit lead me on level ground! (Psalm 143.8 – 10, ESV)
8 Good and upright is the LORD; therefore he instructs sinners in the way.
9 He leads the humble in what is right, and teaches the humble his way.
10 All the paths of the LORD are steadfast love and faithfulness, for those who keep his covenant and his testimonies. (Psalm 25.8 – 10, ESV)