Life in Ulaanbaatar is different to life in the countryside. The city is largely urbanised although many still live in traditional Mongolian gers, or simple houses, on the edges of the city in shanty-like districts. But these ger city dwellers rarely pack up their homes and move. However you only have to travel a little further out of the city, to the area we live in, to see small trucks trundling up and down the road laden with the family ger and its contents.

Traditionally families move sequentially with the seasons. I think most have already moved from their sheltered winter places to their spring locations. Families winter in the same location each year, keeping the hay they gathered the previous autumn in rough barns and their sheep and goats in small chorales. In summer they pitch their tents close to water on lush pastures where their cattle can graze freely. In the autumn they move on again until it’s time to head back to their winter location.

Until recently families had the freedom to pitch their tents wherever they wanted, but the introduction of land ownership in recently years has seen this freedom partially curbed. Yet even when people could literally, plonk their tents anywhere few ever strayed far from their established locations; mostly families moved in a large circle from one location to the next.

It is interesting to observe. They have the freedom to move anywhere but essentially they move to pre-determined spots in a fixed circuit. Watching the nomads’ migratory habits reminds me of God’s guidance. The link may seem tenuous but I see the Mongolian nomads making free-will decisions that appear pre-destined.

I am no theologian but my experience of God’s guidance parallels the nomads moving habits. God gives us the freedom to make choices, to plan and to carry out those plans. But as I reflect on the plans I’ve followed, whether they were consciously submitted to Him or not, they appear to fulfil God’s plan.

It is a mystery — a tension, apparently, between two extremes; and as with all tensions I struggle to hold the truth in balance. Could it be that we are completely free to choose and yet completely in the hands of God? My small mind can’t fathom the depths of this reality — I want it to be one or the other, but it isn’t.

Receiving guidance can be confusing too. There are moments when the way forward is unambiguous and clear but then there are times when I feel as though God has abandoned me and that I walk not knowing where the next step will lead. Only hindsight reveals that His guiding hand never left me.

In praying for guidance I wonder whether I’m asking the wrong question. Perhaps I shouldn’t be trying to get guidance but rather, perhaps I should be seeking to allow God to transform me into the type of person who can receive guidance. To become that person I need to commit my life unconditionally to Him and trust that knowing Him will enable me to make wise decisions.

The Siberian winds blow through our valley chilling us to the bone but bringing with them the promise of warmer weather. Nomadic families are settled in their spring places. Before they move to their next home custom has it that the head of the family, wearing his best clothes, should ride out to find a suitable location. Once the location has been found the elder takes three large stones and places them in a circle to signify where the family will erect their ger. On a good day, when the sky is favourable and the earth soft, the nomads pack up and move to their chosen spot. They follow the signs of the seasons. But we do not follow the signs of the seasons we follow God who created the seasons.

My questions remain unanswered.  But I am learning to stop trying to understand guidance and get to know God better, and to the degree that I know Him I will grow in trusting Him.