This Is The Way (the Power Of Divine Direction) by Apostle Joshua Selman: MP3 Download & Sermon Notes

The Reason for This Teaching

We are examining among the many kingdom principles that are responsible for the dominion of the saints. The intent of the teaching ministry in this house is to produce enlightened and transformed believers who:

1. love God with all their heart
2. have a thorough understanding of the principles that bring any individual to a life of dominion and victory in experience
3. and number three, have a comprehension of the ways to be invested to make God's program happen in their lives and across their territory.

So for every teaching, regardless of the subject under consideration, the goal is: your knowledge of God, coming into the experience of dominion, and being able to serve the purposes of the kingdom with efficiency.

In the subject titled This Is the Way. We want to examine the power of divine direction, to navigate the path of our destinies with precision, and to understand the mystery behind the excellence found in the life of people, churches, and individuals as far as destiny actualization is concerned.

All believers have a destiny of dominion. All believers have a destiny of ever-increasing glory. Proverbs 4:18 says the path of the just is as a shining light that shines more and more unto the perfect day. Job 8:7 attests that even though your beginning be small, your latter end should greatly increase. It did not say it will greatly increase; it says it should. If certain terms are kept, then it will. But if they are not kept, then although it should, it may not happen in experience.

God is glorified as we advance, as we make progress, and as we maximize destiny. God is glorified when we excel, when we triumph over the vicissitudes of life, when fear dies from our life, and when we advance from one dimension of progress to another. John 10:10 says Jesus came that we may have life and have it more abundantly. The word life there is the Greek word Zoe, and it does not just mean existing at another level. It talks about every component that can be imparted upon a human spirit that upgrades a person to function in the God class: his intelligence, his favor, his power, the ability to comprehend at an extraordinary supernatural dimension.

One of the indices that measures happiness, fulfillment, and satisfaction in life generally is the feeling that you are making measurable, constructive progress. To the degree to which you perceive that you are at the epicenter of God's will speaks to peace, joy, happiness, and fulfillment.

An Admission: The Limitations of Human Nature

Even though we are believers in Christ, the Bible is clear that man is tripartite in expression. We are essentially spirits, and these spirits are domiciled in human bodies with soulical faculties that allow the spirit to express through the body in this realm. That design is a great advantage, giving us the ability to operate both in the spirit and in the physical realm. But it also comes with a limitation: that spirit is trapped in a body that is limited, and manifests soulical possibilities that are limited. Only God is unlimited. He is infinite even in knowledge, for the Bible says there is no searching of his understanding. Men are limited by design, not because we are sinners, but simply because we are bound in this frame of body.

Confusion is part of the limitations in all men. To be confused means you are unsure, unclear as to what path to take, what choice to make per time, per season, that leads you further along the path of destiny. All men, at one point or another, face confusion in their lives. Proverbs 14:12 tells us there is a way which seems right unto a man, it didn't say a bad man, it didn't say an evil man, but the end thereof are the ways of death.

So all men are limited. The best, the finest, the most refined of us, unassisted by God, is still limited.

1. Limitation in Knowledge

   1 Corinthians 13:9 shows Paul speaking to the church in Corinth: we know in part and we prophesy in part. That was a very strong admission that we know in part. Nobody knows everything. In as much as we are determined to learn and disciplined enough to learn, it is a sad reality with all men, without exception, that we are limited in knowledge.

2. The Tendency for Error in Judgment and Interpretation

   An example is in the life of Samuel and Eliab, 1 Samuel 16:6. Samuel was a notable prophet, the finest of his day. Yet when he was coming to anoint a king out of the sons of Jesse, when he looked on Eliab, even with the prophetic advantage, even with the depth and height of his consecration, he said, "Surely the Lord's anointed is before him." It was an error in judgment, and this was not from a fake prophet or an unbelieving person, but from one who had been ordained to be a prophet of his day. Because of our human nature, we can call light darkness and call darkness light. If you examine your life, you will see a lot of mistakes you have made in drawing conclusions about people, things, and matters.

3. Limitations That Come by Reason of Being Emotional

   Emotions are an advantage, one of the six faculties of the soul, but emotion can create a lot of limitations. Emotions and desires can be very misleading. In fact, the weakest way to be led in life is to depend on your emotions, because emotions vacillate. With emotions will come sentiments. Did you know that sometimes emotions can attempt to mimic the voice of God when hijacked by demon spirits? A spirit can tilt you toward the direction of your desire, and you can mistake that desire because there was already an intrinsic affinity in that direction. It is easy to believe you are led in a direction only to find out that God had no hand in it.

4. Limitation in Being Sincere

   There is great limitation in sincerity. We often mistake sincerity for accuracy. The moment you feel guiltless about something and your conscience feels pure toward it, chances are excellent that you can be beguiled into thinking that because you are sincere and your motive is right, you must be in the right part. There is such a thing as being sincerely wrong. Many have walked into seasons of sorrow not out of rebellion but out of sincere reliance on their instincts and their understanding. A man who cannot drive but is sincere, and wants to take someone from point A to point B, can in all that sincerity have an accident and kill the people. He did not intend to kill them, but he was sincerely incompetent, sincerely wrong. While sincerity is a noble virtue, when it comes to the business of destiny actualization, sincerity is not enough to drive a man toward the path of greatness.

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Limitation does not mean weakness. It creates a greater dependence, an awareness that you are limited makes you ever dependent on the Unlimited One.

Three Tragic Results of Following a Wrong Path

1. The Loss of Time

   Time, as you have learned in this house, is the unit of destiny. When you lose time, you do not just lose time as it were, the chronological passage of time. You lose a major part of your life and a major part of your destiny. The Bible says we should redeem the time, an instruction because the days are evil. To redeem means to buy back this time around with wisdom. If you do not know the will of the Lord, you will waste time, making a lot of careless assumptions. You always lose time when you follow the wrong direction.

2. Inability to Access the Provisions Allocated for Your Vision

   The word provision means the supplies that follow vision. If you are veered off, if there is a detour from the path of vision, the path of destiny, you will be unable to access the provisions. The first key to receiving the supply of your destiny is to be on the right path. You cannot ask God to fund a path he did not direct. If God funds your detour or deviation, then he is endorsing your unfulfilling destiny, and so the first thing he would do is bring you back to retrace your step.

   Consider the prodigal son. God supernaturally provided all kinds of supplies for him while he was in his father's house, but once he followed a path that was not the path of destiny, he deteriorated, wasted time, and the further he went from his father, the father's supplies left his hands until he was sadly feeding with the swine. For as long as he was in his father's house, there was no talk of lack.

   When Jesus sent the disciples two by two, and later seven by seven, he asked them when they returned, "Lacked ye anything?" And they said, "No." Because Jesus was sent, walking in fulfillment of the Father's desire, everything he needed for the assignment was provided. He did not come from heaven as a baby with riches; but as soon as he arrived, because he was consistent with the will of God, there was a star, and the magi brought him gifts of gold, frankincense, and myrrh. There were times of constraint, like 5,000 men needing to eat, but because he was in the will of God, five loaves and two fish fed them with twelve baskets full to spare. When the tribute collectors came to embarrass him, because he was in the right path, the right direction, he told Peter to go fish, open the mouth of the first catch, and find a coin to pay for them both. Even for the triumphant entry, he had no colt of his own, but because he was in the will of God, he said, "Go to the roads that divide, you will find a colt there wherein no man, not even the owner, has ridden. Loose it and bring it. If they ask, tell them the Master has need of it."

   As far as destiny is concerned, you will perpetually be in lack and want and need until you find the path God has carved out for you, because your helpers are not everywhere. Your helpers are located at the various stations of your destiny. If you are not following that path, you will not find them.

3. Frustration and Sadness

   You cannot rule out being frustrated when you follow a wrong path. There are people today who are only alive biologically, with nothing in their lives that represents life, because they took paths that brought them into perpetual pain and frustration. There are people relocating abroad whose direction was not consistent with God's blueprint, and although they are abroad today, they are abroad in pain and frustration. There are people in career paths that were not carved out for them, and people in marriages they know are not the will of God, yet they remain because of grace available in Jesus's name.

   Sometimes the time it takes to return to base is the same time you wasted, so you literally double the time, except God shows mercy to restore you. The prodigal son still had to walk the same distance back, in worse condition than when he left.

   The world is full of angry people looking for who to blame, but their anger is intrinsic. It just needs a vehicle to express itself. Accuracy in getting your destiny right frustrates those who got it wrong, and there is a price for being successful, because every success becomes a testament to those who failed or are failing that God was just. This is one of the reasons most successful people almost perpetually live their lives persecuted when they get it right.

   Proverbs 3:5-7 says trust in the Lord with all your heart and lean not unto your own understanding; in all your ways acknowledge him, and he shall direct your path. Be not wise in your own eyes; fear the Lord, and depart from evil.

The loss of time, the inability to access the provisions and the help needed for destiny actualization, frustration and sadness, these can spill down to your health and mental health. There are people who have served the Lord all their lives, never lived a wayward life, and yet at 50, 55, 60 years old, nothing is working, feeling like a failure, with only the anchor of being born again. Being born again is wonderful, but it is important to understand the principles.

God Never Leads to Failure

If it is the God of the Bible leading you, except if you are leading yourself and believe you are being led of God, God never leads people to perdition, failure, or defeat. The road may be rough, the road may be dicey, but if you follow his leading, the end of your life will be glory.

Numbers 9:23 describes how, at the commandment of the Lord, the children of Israel journeyed and at the commandment of the Lord they pitched: as long as the cloud abode upon the tabernacle, they rested in their tents.

Keys to Accessing Divine Direction

God is ever willing to lead us if we are willing to follow. Among the many names a believer is called in the Bible are sheep of his pasture, and he calls himself shepherd, father, and guide because of his determination to see to it that you make it in destiny. God has made provisions within the kingdom to see to it that we are directed accurately per time, per season, if we are willing to be led.

1. You Must Admit That Outside of God's Help, You Are Limited

   2 Corinthians 3:5 says, not that we are sufficient of ourselves to think anything of ourselves, but our sufficiency is of God. When a man of such stature as Paul, learned, anointed, an apostle, a miracle worker, a highly intelligent Pharisee, tells you we are not sufficient, it is wise to learn. Jesus himself, when he came, said, "I can of my own self do nothing, as I see my Father do," a state of dependence. Jesus could not fulfill his prophetic assignment on earth until the Holy Ghost came upon him. The first assignment of the Holy Ghost in the life of Jesus, as revealed in scripture, was to lead him; in fact, to drive him to the wilderness to be tempted of the devil. After he overcame that temptation, he returned in the power of the Spirit. There was no talk of the power of the Spirit until he submitted to the leadership of the Holy Spirit.

   We must admit that in spite of our being educated, exposed, connected, and intellectually capable, all of which is profitable, outside of the help and mercy of God, all men are limited. Humility and meekness are principal requirements for divine direction. Divine direction does not come to arrogant people full of themselves and full of their own path. If you already have your own path, God will respect you, but it is usually a way that seems right unto us, and the end thereof are the ways of death.

   Jeremiah 33:3 says call unto me and I will answer, and I will show you great and mighty things which you do not know. He said that you do not know, not that he will only confirm what you already know.

2. You Must Invest in Understanding the Ways of God

   Psalm 119:105 says thy word is a lamp unto my feet and a light unto my path. Thy word does not just give information, it is also light to your path. One of the major ways God directs us is through the intelligence of his character as revealed in scripture, the intelligence of his principles. Knowing how the kingdom operates can help you know when you deviate. There is a way God works, and a way God does not work. There is a way God lifts, and a way God does not lift. There is a way God helps, and a way God does not help.

   When you know the ways of God, you can easily detect when it is not God. No matter how yielded you are, you will not jump from level one to level ten. That is not how God works. God is a God of process. He gives speed, but he does not bypass process. It is vain for someone who has never been in ministry to pray for a church with thousands of branches in one year. Any spirit directing you like that is a familiar spirit; God does not lift like that. A young graduate has not written his final exams and cannot claim the car of a director who has labored for 30 years. The kingdom has a culture, a way things happen. You never become a leader in the kingdom until there is a track record of service. No matter how brief, there must be a track record of service.

   Remember that the way Satan attacks has never changed: deception, accusation, manipulation, oppression. This is the scope of his strategy. It will always come through that doorway. Eve was deceived. Job suffered direct attack on his health. Jesus was tempted through deception, then men were used to oppress. How do you know it is an attack? Because the glory of God is never produced through it. If it is a process, at every point search for glory, you will see glory, you will see wisdom, you will see a purifying of flesh. But when you find discouragement, when you find death, it is not testing, it is an attack. Satan does not give life. He steals, he kills, he destroys. When you are going through a season of testing, that death working in you is not an attack, it is a circumcision, a pruning of flesh. The knowledge of the word helps you know what to pray for and what to allow, and what to attack immediately.

   Scripture is a compendium of promises, principles, and prophecies. It does not just give you promises, God's commitments to you; it gives you principles, the modus operandi of the kingdom, the way the kingdom operates. Knowing that your destiny is a particular destination does not mean you will arrive there; if you follow the wrong road, even at high speed, you will not get there. The principle of cybernetics in aviation means that when an aircraft veers off course beyond a certain angle, the system kicks in and returns the plane to its course. That is how you arrive where you are going. That is what the word of God does, it guides you so you know whether this is of God.

   When God wants to make you a billionaire for the kingdom, he does not bring one billion immediately; you would die, and the Bible would call you a rich fool. He tests your faithfulness first, gives you ten naira and watches how you use it, then increases you, just as he gave one five talents, another two, another one, according to their several ability. When God wants to make you a man of God over nations, he does not start by giving you nations; he gives you three or four faithful people and watches your attitude as you train them. If you say these are broke but faithful people, I don't need them, I'm looking for big men, you have failed the exam. If you are able to kill the bear and the lion for the sake of the sheep, then you can protect God's people when you become king. If you fail that wilderness test, you will not get to the throne.

   Don't just cherry-pick promises lazily and say, "God, you said you would do this." The Bible is not only about what God said he would do for you; it is the knowledge of how to operate within the kingdom.

3. Pray Passionately to Be Guided and Directed by God

   Don't assume that because you need direction, God will direct you. Divine direction is based on a call-and-response system; you need to declare your need. Pray over every step you are about to take, no matter how confident you are. 1 Samuel 30:8 shows David inquiring of the Lord, "Shall I pursue after this troop? Shall I overtake them?" And the Lord answered him and said, "Pursue, for thou shalt surely overtake them, and without fail recover all."

   Psalm 37:5-6 says commit thy way unto the Lord, trust also in him, and he shall bring it to pass. Pray about every step. There is a way that seems right unto a man, and the end thereof are the ways of death. John 16:13 says, when the Spirit of truth is come, he will guide you into all truth, for he shall not speak of himself, but whatsoever he shall hear, that shall he speak, and he will show you things to come.

   When we talk about divine direction, we are not saying you are turned into a zombie. There is a difference between matters within the jurisdiction of intelligence, what to wear, what to eat, and major, life-defining decisions: relocating your family permanently, leaving your job to serve full-time, marriage. These are not decisions to live rashly; you need guidance. Before any major step, even if someone fulfills all the parameters you are looking for, kneel down and ask God whether this person, this path, this decision is consistent with his will for your life. There is a way that seems right to a man; the end of it are the ways of death.

   People have missed their destiny because of a small increase in salary that took them away from where their helpers were positioned. A woman with a strong leading from God to serve in a school had an opportunity to switch to a bank that looked good, but her peace went away. After prayer and consulting, she decided to stay, and the person God lifted her through turned out to be the parent of one of her students. Learn to pray about everything, the Bible says be anxious for nothing, but in everything, by prayer, make your request known.

   His leadership does not negate storms, but it gives you confidence in the midst of storms. A man who knew God led him to marry a woman despite a health report indicating a fertility challenge took the risk; it took a while, but they have children today, and not once did he hold it against her. That is conviction, what gives you staying power through storms.

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   Consistent prayer verifies your plans, purifies your plans, and confirms the voice of God to you. It does not bring fear or doubt; it strengthens your resolve and conviction. Any path that demands you stop praying to take it is most likely a demonic path. Make your plans, explore your creativity, write them down, but after writing, make sure you pray. Never get up to execute anything major without praying. No assumptions, pray.

4. Practice Word-Based Confession and Practice Quiet Meditation

   These are powerful mysteries that can help you discern the will of God and discern direction. Your words are creative. Decreeing and declaring that you are led of the spirit, with no confusion in your life, is creating possibilities, coming into partnership with the Holy Ghost.

   Isaiah 46:10 connects to "be still, and know," there is a kind of knowledge that comes when your spirit man is still. After confessing, after praying, sometimes you simply sit quietly while the Holy Ghost broods over your spirit and your mind. The spirit of wisdom comes upon your mind, and you can pick up pen and paper and begin to write the next seasons of your life. Meditation is a deep mystery in the spirit; sometimes we are too noisy to receive the direction of our destiny.

   If you have not practiced word-based meditation, your spirit has not been trained to be still in the presence of God, and your mind will run around, but stay there. Sermons can come out of this. Songs can come out of this. Direction can come out of this.

   Stillness in the presence of God is power. When the woman caught in adultery was brought before Jesus, both a yes and a no would have put him in trouble; it was a trap. Jesus kept quiet and was writing on the ground. He got up and said, "He that is without sin, let him cast the first stone," an answer that looked unwise until you saw its effect on the people. Daniel also practiced this power of the secret place: when the king demanded the dream and its interpretation, Daniel asked for time, went to his brethren, and that night the secret was revealed to him in a vision.

   After praying, after speaking, pray in tongues, reduce worship to low volume, and with a clean sheet of paper, like you expect him to speak, drop your plans and goals into his presence so he can verify them. Ten minutes nothing happens, twenty minutes nothing happens, an hour nothing happens, and suddenly the glory rests and things begin to come out of your spirit prophetically, things you cannot remember depositing there, but they come out because they are from your spirit. Be still and know the direction for the next season. Be still and know what to do about a financial situation already in trouble. Sometimes in that stillness you will hear his voice, telling you to text someone about a situation, that is a rhema word, and the person on the receiving end will say God has been ministering to them to help somebody out.

5. Godly Counsel: Outsource Counsel From Spiritual Authorities and Matured Believers

   This includes fathers and mothers in the faith, mentors, authorities in whatever field of endeavor, men and women with proven results and experience. Proverbs 11:14 says where there is no counsel, the people fall, but in the multitude of counselors there is safety.

   When you find people who have paid the price in righteousness to access experience, who have gone through the valley of the shadow of death and produced results, it is unwise to believe your situation will be so peculiar that they will not have an answer for it. After ranting all your problems, sometimes a father of faith or mentor will laugh, and with compassion, one sentence dissolves all your doubts.

   There are three conditions that make an experience worth following: the person must, either through it or after it, be a godly person; there must have been victory at the end, not someone still in the midst of their fire; and an overcomer is one who has used the word of God, engaged it, and it worked, not one merely going through it. Focus on winning rather than teaching what you know; win first, then you earn the right to teach. If you are still owing rent, don't give financial advice; finish first, use the advice on yourself.

   Beware of people who have failed repeatedly, are angry and frustrated, and have not found their way out. Learn from them from afar, but don't go to them for counsel; they will create a theology out of their pain and frustration and mislead you. It is important to love all men and learn from all men, but zoom in on people with a godly, proven track record to help fast-track your journey. Don't generalize pain into a template for a generation. Respect everyone's pain, but it is not enough to mentor others.

   Credibility is what gives power to a message. Be confident, but not overconfident. Sometimes those who are quiet around you, who own estates, businesses, and shares, listen as we vent our financial illiteracy with compassion. Counsel is powerful, but let the right people counsel you. Teaching, sharing advice, and mentoring are different things; you can learn from everyone, but you cannot submit to a failure to mentor you.

   Proverbs 4:20-22 speaks of attending to wisdom's words, inclining the ear to her sayings, not letting them depart from the heart, for they are life to those who find them and health to all their flesh. When meeting fathers of faith or those who have done remarkably well in righteousness, the posture should be one of humility and willingness to learn, not arriving as a colleague with preconceived notions. How do you know you need counsel? When you pray and pray and it looks like the answer has not come, find someone who knows, and begin to receive counsel. Counsel is not an automatic stamp you must follow, but distill wisdom from it and take it back to the place of prayer.

6. Pay Attention to Dreams, Visions, and Supernatural Experiences

   Joel 2:28 says it shall come to pass that I will pour out my Spirit upon all flesh, your sons and daughters shall prophesy, your old men shall dream dreams, your young men shall see visions. God has not stopped using dreams, visions, and supernatural experiences to direct men, under the guard of the word and under the guard of mentorship. They are a potent way of distilling the voice of God and getting direction for the next level of your life.

   In Genesis 41, Pharaoh dreamed a dream, and God used it to reveal the coming famine; Joseph had the capacity to interpret it, and it saved Israel, Egypt, and the surrounding world from famine. In Exodus 3:2-5, the angel of the Lord appeared to Moses in a flame of fire in a burning bush that was not consumed, and when Moses turned aside to see, God called him out of the midst of the bush. Isaiah 6 describes Isaiah, in the year King Uzziah died, seeing the Lord high and lifted up through a supernatural experience, where a seraph touched his lips and said his iniquity was taken away. Solomon had a night vision and encountered God after offering a thousand burnt offerings. Joseph, who played the earthly father role for Jesus, was directed through a dream to take the child to a place of safety and use another route.

   Dreams are powerful, that is why Satan is also interested in your dreams. The salvation of the Gentiles started through a trance, not through preaching: Acts 10 records Peter seeing a vision of a sheet descending from heaven with unclean beasts, and being told, "What God has cleansed, call not common," a prophetic picture of what he would do in the house of Cornelius. Hebrews 1:1 says God, who at sundry times and in diverse manners spoke to the fathers by the prophets, has in these last days spoken to us by his Son.

   It's good to respect the supremacy of the word, but let us not throw away dreams, visions, and supernatural experiences when they are within the boundary of the word and within the boundary of mentorship; they work wonders in the lives of people. Pay attention to prophetic dreams, write them down, and trust God for grace to interpret them properly. Dreams can be erroneous, a figment of your subconscious, an extension of your dominant thoughts, but dreams can also be highly prophetic, a window into your tomorrow.

7. An Outpouring of Peace

   Psalm 85:8 says I will hear what God the Lord will speak, for he will speak peace unto his people and to his saints. God speaks peace; the voice of peace is the voice of God. One of the ways we access divine direction is when we find peace. You may not hear an audible voice, but you can find peace as a witness, and when peace comes upon a step you have planned, like an icing on the cake, don't let anything stop you.

   No matter how accurate your plans are, if peace does not come upon it, be careful, you may need to seek counsel. When you ignore the peace of God, the consequences may not show immediately in your life; they may show in the life of your children and your children's children. Don't neglect the peace of God. Sometimes there can be chaos outside but total tranquility within. Being directed by God does not immunize you from battles, only from defeat.

   When Jesus said, "Let us go to the other side," and a storm arose while they were on their way, he did not say let's go back after calming the storm; he said let's continue where we are going, because the direction was correct, a storm had simply arisen. Regardless of the storms around you, storms do not mean God is not with you; sometimes they simply mean he is giving you peace.

   The peace of God is an antidote to fear. Some who are directed accurately are so averse to failure that they cannot take bold steps. The righteous is as bold as a lion. There are times you have to walk on water, not because the water is not boisterous, but because there is a peace that is greater than the turbulence.

   If you are not taught the subjects of divine direction and the voice of God with balance, you will never take a step in your life. There are many ways God leads men; there are times he says start, and there are times he gives you the courage to start, and even if you start against his will, he will say stop, and it is still him leading you. For a yielded believer it is very difficult to miss the will of God, because the jealousy of God is defending your limitations.

8. Engage the Prophetic Ministry

   This includes, but is not limited to, the prophetic office and all revelatory gifts. When the prophetic is activated within the boundary of scripture, it works wonders. When the prophetic is accurate and word-compliant, in two minutes you can receive accurate direction over God's will and intent for you with precision. Never throw the prophetic out of your arsenal; you will need it.

   When it was time to move to Abuja, it was not only the word of God and the witness of the spirit; there were people who saw it with uncanny precision, including the month, before it was even on the minds of those involved.

   Accurate prophets, consecrated prophets, are rare, but they are there. Agabus prophesied the famine that came accurately, and prophesied that Paul would be bound and delivered to the Gentiles, and it happened. By now you know that prophetic delivery alone is not enough to ascertain whether a prophet is accurate; the life of the prophet, his consecration, his submission to the word of God, his track record, and the results that come from him matter. There are two dimensions to being accurate in the prophetic: the power of sight or hearing, and the capacity to interpret what was seen through the lens of the written word, even great prophets fail here when they are not strong in the ministry of the word and doctrine.

   There are rules of engagement in dispensing the prophetic. 1 Timothy 5:1 instructs not to rebuke an elder, but to entreat him as a father. If God opens your eyes about a highly placed man of God, you call that person to the secret place rather than prophesying in the open, because the security and reputation of that person matters. This is what Jesus did with Zacchaeus, calling him down from the tree privately, and the conclusions of that conversation, that Zacchaeus would return what he took unjustly, were never made public by Jesus himself. Not every prophetic word should be public, especially matters that could wreck a marriage or destroy people, those should be discussed in private.

   Psalm 23 speaks of the Lord as shepherd, leading beside still waters, guiding in paths of righteousness, and even walking through the valley of the shadow of death without fear, for goodness and mercy follow all the days of life.

For those who have made mistakes in destiny, marriage, business, ministry, there is something called the mercy of God. When God's mercy is introduced over a life and a situation, he can bring glory out of pain. If you had had God's direction, you might not have entered that destructive marriage or made that costly mistake, but now that you are in it, even though you walk through the valley of the shadow of death, you fear no evil, not because you are out already, but because he is with you.

2 Corinthians 4:17 says our light affliction, which is but for a moment, works for us a far more exceeding and eternal weight of glory. 2 Corinthians 9:8 says God is able to make all grace abound toward you, that you, having sufficiency in all things, may abound to every good work.

God knows how to produce glory out of everything, even a wrong choice, even an already-divorced situation, even a child out of wedlock. Hand it over to him: Lord, the mistake has been made, but here is this child, can you use this child for your glory and use the remaining part of my life for your glory? Pain becomes an object of worship if God finds glory in it.