How Can We Walk With God?

9. Why was Jehovah at times hidden from his people, yet what assurance did he provide according to Isaiah 30:20?

⁹ The third question in our consideration deserves our most careful attention. It is, How can we walk with God? We find the answer at Isaiah 30:20, 21: “Your Grand Instructor will no longer hide himself, and your eyes must become eyes seeing your Grand Instructor. And your own ears will hear a word behind you saying: ‘This is the way. Walk in it, you people,’ in case you people should go to the right or in case you should go to the left.”

10. In what sense may you “hear a word behind you” from your Grand Instructor?

¹⁰ In Isa 30 verse 21, a different word picture is painted. Jehovah is depicted as walking behind his people, issuing directions on the right way to walk. Bible scholars have noted that this expression might be based on the way a shepherd sometimes follows his sheep, calling out to guide them and to keep them from going the wrong way. How does this word picture apply to us? Well, when we turn to God’s Word for guidance, we are reading words that were recorded thousands of years ago. They are coming from behind us, as it were, in the stream of time. Yet, they are just as relevant today as they were the day they were written. Bible counsel can guide us in our day-to-day decisions, and it can help us to map out the course of our life over the years to come. (Psalm 119:105) When we earnestly seek out such counsel and apply it, then Jehovah is our Guide. We are walking with God.