“Trust in the Lord with all your heart and lean not on your own understanding; in all your ways submit to Him, and He will make your paths straight” Proverbs 3: 5 & 6.
Years ago when I was a missionary in Tanzania, East Africa, I lived in a very remote area of the world where there was no electricity, water or roads. I lived with the Sukuma whom I grew to love and admire immediately. Shortly after arriving, one night a small group of people knocked on my door late in the dark, star-lit night to ask me to come with them to their village because a young child had died from malaria and dehydration. The group of grieving strangers piled into my pickup and off we went into the night. I remember feeling scared because I did not know these people nor did I know the destination to which we were driving. But more than anything else I felt TRUST, trust in God and trust in these people whom I had come to serve. After 30 minutes we arrived. After spending 4 hours with the entire village in prayer, and after assisting in the burial of this young, 8-year old boy, I headed back home in the pitch dark. When I left the village and was alone in the dry, tall savannah grasses, I stopped and prayed to God, telling Him that I TRUSTED The Lord to get me home alone in the dark. Forty minutes later I pulled into the compound at 3:00 am.
Trust is essential to all human life. Trust in God and trust in each other. I cannot imagine life without trust. That night I knew I could trust the Lord in a way I had never done before. So many nights I headed out of the compound in the dark — alone — with no roads of lights. I always told God that I trusted Him to return me safely home.
Is not the meaning of life expressed in these verses above in Proverbs 3? “Trust in the Lord with all your heart and lean not on your own understanding; in all your ways submit to Him, and He will make your paths straight” Proverbs 3: 5 & 6.
Oh that we could have trusted God at all times!
Make this your daily prayer today. Make this the hope of your life. Think about it: Is there anyone whom we can trust in life more than The Lord? NO! It is The Lord, and only The Lord, whom we can completely trust. This is why we must submit our lives — this is why we must give our lives — to The Lord. Anyone who has our total and unswerving trust, deserves our complete submission to. Name one person you have ever met who put his or her trust in the Lord — only to be smitten by The Lord. Such a person does not exist.
When we lean on our own persuasive understanding and reason we quickly take paths that lead us away from God.
The only way back to the path God has chosen for us is to trust and submit our lives once again to the Lord.
Many that be our prayers today!
Oh Lord, we beg You to give us sufficient grace to trust You. That is why You have given us life — to love You and to trust You. When our thoughts, our thinking, begin to convince us that our ways are the best, pull us back to You before we lean on our own faulty understanding. We know for sure that You alone can be fully trusted. We trust You — help us when are inclined to trust ourselves instead. Help us to give in to you rather than to give into ourselves. Help us to submit our daily lives and temptations to You. What joy, what peace, what grace comes to us when we trust You! Forgive us our sins and lead us away from the temptations that are rooted in our own understanding, and deliver us from evil.
We ask this through Christ, The Lord, Amen.
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