If you’re here in the US, pull out your wallet or open up your change purse and take a look at any money you may have in there. On there will be the words “In God We Trust.” It means many things here in the US. But let’s look at what we find in Proverbs 3, our next stop in our Trip Through Proverbs.
Trust in the Lord with all your heart; do not depend on your own understanding. Seek his will in all you do, and he will direct your paths. – Proverbs 3:5,6
Every day, we are faced with decisions to make as we move through life. Some are simple (what should we have for dinner?), others can be life changing (Should I take that new job? Should we buy that house?) Usually as Christians we make the effort to find God’s will about those big life changing decisions we face. I say usually, because often we may make an effort to pray, but it seems more out of duty and not of a sincere need to find the path that God wants us to travel. We can go through the motions of asking what God wants us to do, but I’m not sure we always want to hear the answer, because we’re fearful it will disagree what we want the answer to be.
Trust in the Lord with all your heart
Trusting in God in all things is an easy thing to say we do, but in reality it’s much more difficult to actually do. We may not like the answer that God gives us. He may tell us to stay in a job we dislike, because He still has some work for us to do there. Or he may tell us to go on mission, usually taking us out of our comfort zone into places we would least expect or like to go. But we are to trust that he knows best, has a better plan than we could ever come up with, one that we couldn’t even fathom how it reaches beyond what we know. Our job is simply to trust.
Do not depend on your own understanding
We aren’t to try to figure out why God wants us to do what he has asked. We will never completely understand, we will not comprehend the big picture. God sees for all eternity and how each of our actions plays out. We see only in the here and now. What we feel may be the correct course of action, may be the complete opposite of what God wants. And while we are in no danger of spoiling God’s grand plan, we have the potential of missing out on God’s blessing if we try to go our own way.
Seek his will in all you do
So we are trusting in God completely. Not trying to reason out the best course of action for ourselves. So what do we do. Well we seek his will. Not just in the big things, but in all things. Don’t just come to God when we have a major life changing decision, but ask him what we should have for dinner. He does care. Plus because we don’t see the big picture like God does, perhaps our choice of dinner will put is in a place where we are meant to be.
And he will direct our paths
Just yesterday, my wife says somewhat out of the blue, “Let’s go see if we can find any garage sales.” So off we go, into the 90 degree heat and see what we can find. The direction we went, was probably a poor choice for selections of garage sales, but finally we came across a sign that lead us into a dead-end street that curved up and around into wooded areas. We travel for awhile, wondering if we would ever find the location and just as we were about to turn around thinking someone had just left an old sign at the end of the road, we see a small sign at the end of a driveway. We stop, look towards the garage and still wonder if this is the right place as it seems empty. We get out of the car and walk up and sure enough, there is a couple tables setup in the garage, filled with a few trinkets. A man in his 60s sits in the back of the garage working on a crossword puzzle, seemingly disinterested in us. We browse the tables and actually find a few things that we want to purchase. Taking our selections up, we pay the man and begin to walk away.
As we left the garage, I see the man rise and walk our way as he begins to make small talk with us. My wife and I got the sense that he was just a lonely man that needed someone to talk with so we stopped and chatted for a bit. We come to find out that he had recently lost his job and was currently having financial issues which if not corrected soon, he would lose his home. As we talked, it turns out that I may actually be able to help him find a job and hopefully get him and his family back on their feet financially. As we were leaving, he walked us out to our car and said that his church had been praying for him for six months and he felt I was an answer to their prayers for him.
Well that’s yet to be seen if I can really help him or not. Each day though, I wake up and try to fix in my mind that I want to follow God’s promptings for the day. I want to see where the opportunities may be that he is putting in front of us. There were a lot of steps and decisions that had to be made at just the right time for me to walk in that man’s garage that morning. But by seeking his will and trusting that he has complete understanding so I don’t have to, he guided me to exactly where I needed to be for myself, my wife and this man we met.
I’m a firm believer that God has a purpose for each of our steps, no matter how insignificant they may seem. Each of those seemingly small decisions and steps can have far-reaching impacts that may take years to come to light. If we fully trust God and not our own understanding and truly seek out his will in even the small things, he will guide our path. That sounds pretty amazing if you ask me.
Exceptional Christian 