Trust in the Lord with all your heart…

Trust in the LORD with all your heart, and lean not on your own understanding; In all your ways acknowledge Him, and He will direct your paths. – Prov. 3:5-6.

It is easy to say “I have faith in God.” It is very easy to say it when everything is going swimmingly and life is not presenting us with any trials designed to tax our allegiance. But it is a thing rather more difficult, even when times are steady, to trust God with all our heart. That makes demands upon us that we may not always feel entirely comfortable with. When God says, “Give me your heart,” He is not going to be content with a passing “Praise the Lord” or a casual “God is so good to me” inserted once or twice a day into our busy schedules. What He wants is we ourselves. He wants us in our deepest thoughts and longings and motivations. He above all things is deserving of our greatest and unreserved trust. He who made all things for Himself and who has redeemed us so we can share in “the restitution of all things” is so far the sanest object of our trust that to question His right to it is sheer folly. Indeed, it is devilish!

Here we are in the midst of a torrid world; directionless, uncaring, and fundamentally incapable of addressing soberly any of the really big questions in life, and there is God, who has not abandoned us to our moral and intellectual aporia but who in love and grace beckons us to Himself. “Trust in the Lord.” That is what takes the reins out of our weak hands and makes us look up. That God has given His children in Christ some understanding is true, but any such wisdom that we may have is certainly going to wear out if we use it without reference to its Author. And when we begin leaning on our own understandings and taking counsel of ourselves, we should not be surprised if in very short order, our spiritual temperature goes down and our dalliance with the world increases.

All of us have decisions to make, about our kids, our workday, our leisure time, our bills, and our relationships. In the midst of our daily pursuits let us maintain a strong sense of the presence of God, owning the truth that “without Him we can do nothing.” Then we shall be more prepared to bring God into the decision. If we know that the way that we are taking today is fully known by our Lord and Master how much wiser will our deliberations be, and how much more sure-footed our next step? For “He will direct,” and that, surely, is what the believer wants! For the plan of God for our lives is usually not revealed but one step at a time (otherwise why would we need faith?). Yet faith acknowledges God. Faith lays hold of Him and knows that the next step is known to Him. Only the Lord can say to us, “this is the way, walk ye in it.”