Are You a Spiritual Signpost? How Your Life Points Others to God

“Along unfamiliar paths I will guide them.” —Isaiah 42:16

When I first started walking in the Cotswolds, I often found myself lost, confused, and finding myself back where I had been an hour before. It took me some time to find my way around. Along the local footpaths—on gates, posts, trees, and rocks—are yellow arrows pointing the way to the next crossing or turning one must take. And maps and guidebooks are also available to chart one’s course o’er hill and dale. But by no means is that the whole story.

Despite the signposts and the maps pointing out specific landmarks, time and nature have a cruel way of hiding the path. All it takes is for summer foliage or a fallen tree to obscure one of those landmarks, and a person can easily become disoriented. As simple as it first sounds, getting from point A to point B can be somewhat mystifying for the novice.

I am happy to report that my days as a novice are over. Now that I’ve walked these hills for several years, I consider myself somewhat of a veteran. The proper footpaths and the signposts which mark them are like old familiar friends. We greet each other almost daily.

Interestingly, my familiarity with the territory usually comes as a surprise to British ramblers who have themselves become disoriented.Upon hearing my American accent, many of them skeptically peg me for a wandering tourist out for a stroll in virgin territory. I am the last person they would ever expect to show them the way. Nevertheless, they are grateful for the help. Being able to rely on my experience means they don’t have to depend so much on their own reckoning.

Recognizing the difficulty of finding one’s way along unfamiliar footpaths makes me appreciate all the more the life of Jesus. Having a personal guide, rather than simply printed guidelines, makes all the difference.

In a spiritual sense, it is all the difference between the written Word and the incarnate Word. When I am in the midst of some important decision or a confusing time in my life, what a tremendous help it is to have some godly friend give me counsel and advice. And in Christ that blessing is multiplied many fold. As the hymn says: What a friend we have in Jesus!

Not that the written Word is unimportant. I agree with Jeremiah’s sentiments: that it is not within myself to direct my own steps (Jeremiah 10:23). I know all too well how terribly lost and confused I get when I impetuously set out on my own! Holy Scripture contains all the necessary signposts to point me to God.

Yet even the written Word can have its drawbacks. It’s too easy for human tradition to obscure the meaning of the text or for human nature to look for loopholes—those spiritual shortcuts which inevitably take us off the beaten path. Little wonder, then, that God comes to our rescue in the form of a personal Guide—the spoken and written Word made flesh!

In Jesus we have a reliable guide in whose footsteps we can confidently follow. “Follow my example,” Paul told the Corinthians, “as I follow the example of Christ” (1 Corinthians 11:1). In Matthew 4:19 when Jesus called the chosen Twelve, saying “Follow me,” he was also calling us.

If you were to say to me that following Jesus is not always easy, I would have to agree with you. Invariably, he insists on taking me along the highest path—the one that stretches every fiber of my being. Nevertheless, wherever he leads, I know it’s the right path.

Fortunately, there is more to following Jesus than simply staying on the right path. Through the example laid down by Jesus, abstract biblical precepts are given ultimate personal expression. Faith is no longer a matter of struggling to understand written directions, but a matter of following in the footsteps of the One who has gone before me—in life, in death, and in the life to come.

But here the metaphor must change. No longer are we “following” Jesus—as if separated by some distance—but we have Christ in us, bringing life, and strength, and hope. With Christ in us, never is the destination clearer!

True leadership begins by being genuinely different in the eyes of the world. Only the most obstinate person sees someone going along in a different direction without at least making a mental note that a different path does in fact exist. And who knows—many of the more curious seekers might even wonder if it is a better path.

That’s when it becomes important for me to be more than a map reader for myself—or a map interpreter for others, for that matter. If someone sees me crossing a field in a direction he has never considered before, it is me he is watching—not a map.

Whether or not we think of ourselves as spiritual leaders, the truth is that, day by day, we are leading people either to or away from a relationship with God.

For many onlookers I am a human signpost—a yellow arrow on the road of life that points them down one path or another. And it is here—right here—that it makes such a crucial difference whether or not I have made the transition from simply “following” Christ at a distance to actually having Christ in me.

Considering the spiritual consequences which other people potentially face, I’ve got to answer a no-holds-barred question about myself: If people follow my example, will I be leading them in the right direction?