Our Bible verse for today: “Trust in the Lord with all your heart and lean not on your own understanding; in all your ways acknowledge him, and he will make your paths straight.” Proverbs 3:5-6 (NIV)
Our thought for today: “Trust God to guide you.”
In recent days, as I have been thinking and praying about the theme for this month’s devotionals, God reminded me that right now there are at least several readers of these daily devotionals who I know of who are wrestling with important life decisions and who therefore need to be confident of God’s leading. So I’m convinced that’s what I should to be writing about. And for those of us who are not in that situation right now, at some point we will be.
Proverbs 3:5-6 is one of my personal life-verses and it is certainly one of the most important passages of Scripture regarding receiving guidance from God. There we find a simple four-part prescription that helps to ensure we are approaching this correctly.
First, trust in the Lord with all your heart. Trust Him. God is good, He loves you without limit, and He has your best interests at heart. He’s more interested in your well-being than even you are. So trust Him.
Second, lean not on your own understanding. Do not rely just on your own understanding. It’s true that God gave you a mind, and He doesn’t mind if you use it once in a while, but your own thinking is often flawed. In addition to your own thoughts on the subject you need lots of prayer, plenty of guidance from the Bible, and good counsel from mature Christians.
Third, in all your ways acknowledge Him. In other words, to the best of your ability surrender your will for His. There is no better or safer place for you to be than right in the middle of God’s will.
And fourth, He will make your paths straight. God has a vested interest in your obedience and in your success. He wants you to be obedient and He wants you to be successful (in the way He defines success), and He wants it even more than you want it. So once your heart is right you can trust Him to guide you to where you need to go. If your heart is right, and if you truly are seeking His will and trying to be obedient to it, He’s not going to sit back and watch you walk off the edge of a cliff. Trust Him to lead you.
This is the starting place for seeking and receiving God’s guidance. We will now spend the rest of the month exploring the subject in greater depth.
Oak Hill Baptist Church