5 Trust in the Lord with all your heart
and lean not on your own understanding;
6 in all your ways submit to him,
and he will make your paths straight. – Proverbs 3:5-6 (NIV)
I have two boys that have played basketball on rec league teams since they were little kids. Every year, without fail, there’s one kid on the team who thinks they know everything already, likes to tell his teammates what they’re doing wrong, and wants to argue with the coach on a routine basis. They’ve never actually played basketball on a real team before, can’t dribble to save their life, but they’re confident all the basketball they’ve watched on television makes them a 10-year old expert.
How often do we do the same thing with God? When He wants to do a new thing in our life, when He wants to teach us what we do not yet know, when He wants to help us become all that He intended us to be, we argue, give Him our “expert” opinion, wander off in our own direction, and try to maintain a posture of being in charge. Maybe this short and simple, yet powerfully profound text has something to say to us today.
Trust in the Lord
Trust isn’t just an intellectual exercise but is shown in our actions and how we live. The word we translate into “trust” means to lie extended, facedown on the ground. Warren Wiersbe describes it as a picture of “…a servant waiting for the master’s command in readiness to obey.” Since the Lord has proven His faithfulness and trustworthiness over and over again, we can make the commitment with confident assurance to trust Him with everything, in every way, each and every day.
With all your heart
We either trust God completely or we don’t; there is no middle ground. When we trust Him with all of our heart we are saying we’re trusting Him with everything we have and everything we are. When we bring our broken lives to Jesus to receive His salvation, we give all the pieces to Him because we want Him to be Lord of all. And if He is Lord of all, we give all we have to Him as a worshipful response for all he has given to us.
Lean not on your own understanding
How often do we rely on our own wisdom, experience, and knowledge as we make this journey through life? How often do we depend on our limited perception, flawed thought processes, even our emotional responses to make vital decisions? When we put our trust in the Lord, we lean on the all-knowing, all-powerful God who sees the beginning, the middle, and the end. We rest on the wisdom of the One whose thoughts and ways are so much higher than ours. If we already knew what we were doing, our lives would be perfect and we wouldn’t need Him.
In all your ways submit to Him
This means I submit all of my will to His will. I lay down all of my hopes and dreams at His feet in order to pick up what He wants for me. When I submit to Christ it’s a total and complete surrender. The way I talk, the way I think, the way I treat others, the way I handle my finances, the way I raise my family, everything falls under submission to Him.
And he will make your paths straight
Do we want to forge our own path to who knows where, or do we want to take this promise of God to heart and walk in the way that He wants for us? This doesn’t mean we’ll be free from difficulties, but it does mean we’ll have His presence, His guidance, and His protection along the way. As we continue to take steps in faith, He continues to make straight the way. After all, if we’re trusting Him for the destination then just maybe the goal isn’t always knowing where you’re going and what it’s going to look like along the way – it’s about the journey and walking with Him.
Are there areas of your life that you have not yet trusted God in or for? Is God inviting you to experience freedom from having to be in charge and figure it all out on your own? During this 21 Days of Prayer and Fasting, how might God be calling you to a new level of trust, surrender, and submission?