What’s Your Favorite? – Proverbs in Practice
What are your favorites, former procrastinators? Favorite ice cream? Favorite sport? Favorite season? What is your favorite Bible verse? Some Bible passages are dear to us because they’ve comforted us through hard times, helped us make decisions, provided insight we needed. They tend to pop right in our minds when someone asks for a verse. Here’s a favorite for many of us:
“Trust in the Lord with all your heart and do not lean on your own understanding. In all your ways acknowledge Him, and He shall direct your path.” Proverbs 3:5-6
This proverb has helped me often. It seems to complement many others which you’ll notice as we move through the remainder of the year’s verses.
What makes this one so special? I’m thinking it sums up our condition and need; then it provides us with steps to take to receive the guidance we long for. Yet it is not a formula.
God has given hearts and amazing brains to us needy people who ironically tend to think more highly of ourselves than we ought. “Well, I think…” Even more amazing than His creation is that He wants relationship with us and invites us to know Him. That is astounding! How could I be so pompous as to think I have the answers or can figure them out – when God Himself is ready to enlighten me?
According to Hallmark, when someone’s desperate to find his or her way, the counsel is usually, “Listen to your heart. Trust your heart.” What horrible advice! Jeremiah 17:9 says “The heart is deceitful above all things and desperately wicked. Who can know it?”
Jesus is reliable. Trusting Him is like sitting in a chair, our full weight relaxed. We need not sit on the edge so we can spring into action or rescue ourselves from falling. The chair is reliable.
Do not prop yourself on what you come up with from inside yourself. That will move. The Lord is stable. Understanding from Him is reliable. When we look to Him for understanding we’re more open to “Maybe I misunderstood” or “Is there another way to look at this situation?” or “That never occurred to me.”
To acknowledge Him does not mean a mere nod toward heaven. Bill Fawcett points out that to acknowledge Him in all our ways means seek to know Him in an intimate relationship. As we get to know Him, we grow in trust and understanding – and He directs us. Bill says we’re inclined to want guidance from God without having a deep relationship with Him.
That’s a word for us, former procrastinators. Invest the time and effort now getting to know God. Oh, how much we gain! Then, do what He says. When we delay obeying, we affect our relationship.
This is a more valuable proverb than I thought.
What will you do to deepen your relationship with God?
