I was chatting to a friend the other day who was telling me about some folks defending their particular chosen course of action with a reference to God’s leading. He recounted to me experiences where this kind of thinking was prevalent in his church and people were shocked when he suggested that such feelings were not altogether reliable. Rather than centre ourselves on such things, we determine God’s will by searching his Word. I wish I was more shocked to hear about it than I was.

Here’s the thing, we need a moratorium on phrases like ‘I sense God’s leading’ or ‘the Lord is leading me to…’ or ‘I have a sense of peace that the Lord is leading me in this’. I accept that the context in which these things are deployed is often harmless when it is clear that the person is not saying that the Word is irrelevant. But more often than not, these phrases are employed in an attempt to put a spiritual veneer – indeed a effort citing God’s authority – on a thing that they just want to do.

I am reminded of the man – who despite all attempts and pleadings to the contrary – insisted he had a real sense of peace and God’s leading about leaving his wife for another woman. It didn’t matter what God’s Word said, it simply mattered that he felt peace and assured of God’s leading. It didn’t matter that it was pointed out that God doesn’t contradict himself and he has been clear in his word, his personal sense of God’s leading would not permit him to do other. It didn’t make a jot of difference that the bible explicitly says our hearts will do this kind of thing and therefore how we feel things to be or sense what is appropriate is deeply unreliable, God was leading so that was that. It was simultaneously sad and extremely moronic.

Whilst most are not using these phrases at that quite so obviously sinful level, they are typically employed in more subtly sinful ways. I have already mentioned the manipulation of the matter. I simply want to do this but I am going to use God’s name in vain and put his stamp of authority upon what is – start to finish – simply my own desire. The desire might be fine, it might be legitimate, but we invoke God’s name, his leading, the Spirit’s seal of approval on our desire. I cannot see it as anything other than blasphemous when we do.

It is also deeply unloving. It is an attempt to force people to follow your feelings and intuitions without any grounds to do so. If God is leading, who are you to say I can’t or I shouldn’t? It is a pseudo-spiritual attempt to bind everyone’s hands and force them to affirm whatever it is you want to do. It speaks to an ill-considered shallowness to your position; one that you cannot justify biblically or logically so you rely on the pseudo-spiritual authority of God’s leading so that it cannot be questioned. Those who are convinced they are right to be doing whatever it may be tend to be more focused on pointing out what the Bible explicitly says they can or should do.

It is, of course, entirely possible that God is leading us. It is perfectly plausible he is giving us some sort of sense of intuition of his guidance in matter. I don’t deny the possibility. What I am saying, however, is that apart from the words of scripture, how do you know? How do you know it is God and not your sin? How do you know it is God leading and not just your inherent desire? The only way we can be certain is if God has been explicit and we tend to know that when we can point to it in the word and other people – without the same burning desire – can look and affirm what he seems to have said too.

I think we need a moratorium on ‘God is leading me’ language. Not because it is never true, but because it is almost never cited with any credible reason to believe it. If all we have if your feeling or intuition, then it isn’t God leading you, you are just following yourself.