Trust in the lord with all your heart and lean not to your own understanding. In all your ways acknowledge him and he shall direct your paths. Proverbs 3:5
Amazing how leaning into your own understanding can be the first step out of trusting in the lord.
I found myself the other day trying to reason through a set of circumstances and I realized the longer I considered how to resolve the situation the more anxious I became. Then I heard the Holy Spirit remind me of Proverbs 3:5. You think you are all good in the trusting but how do you argue with the Spirit of truth and yet not grieve him?
Trust means a firm reliance on the reliability, truth, strength and ability of someone or something. Firm reliance would be steady and unmovable. When we lean to our own understanding, first of all it is not a leaning into His and secondly our own understanding moves us.
We have two conditions of our heart that we must always be guarding. First, the love we have for God and then the trust we have in Him. If we stop to consider temptations, we see they come to challenge these core issues of our life. With all our heart leaves no room for anything or anyone else. As a wife, it’s easy to throw all the responsibility on David and trust him to make all the right decisions, but there is no growth in that for me personally and trust in God is very personal. David can not do that for me. There is a God and it’s not David.
It’s so easy these days, and we are encouraged in this world, to trust ourselves. After all who else would take care of you like you. The deception lies in thinking there is power in our control. We think we can guarantee a life that is relatively safe and secure without having to trust in another. However, there is a God; He is called Lord God Almighty and for the believer we are to live in absolute dependency on Him. Some trust in chariots, some in horses but we will remember the name of the Lord our God.
In all your ways acknowledge Him, every step, every decision. There is a way that seems right to man, but it’s end is the way to death. The mind of man plans his ways, but the Lord directs his steps.
In all your ways acknowledge Him. How do we do this? We start at knowing we need his help. He is Lord. God. Almighty. What is missing in those names? What lack could there possibly be to us when we acknowledge Him? Living with this awareness keeps us humble. Apart from him we are nothing, we have nothing and can do nothing. He is our life and reason for existence. We are so tempted to judge God after our natural circumstance and ascribe to him a character and nature that is unjust.
Acknowledge Him and He directs. Every instrument in an orchestra looks to the director. Watching and waiting for the instruction to not just play but how and when to play his notes. Shall we not live in subjection to our Father of our Spirits and live. Can we not live with His abiding presence? Is this not what we are truly called to?
Trust in the Lord with all your heart and lean not to your own understanding. We refuse to engage in our human reasoning but set ourselves in our acknowledgement of who He is. It’s in this place we begin to hear His instructions and walk in paths of righteousness for His name sake.
There is a better we can all choose.