Trust in the Lord with all your heart, and do not rely on your own insight. In all your ways acknowledge him, and he will make straight your paths. (Proverbs 3:5-6)
Heart. Ways. All. Part of my confidence in the Scriptures as a divine work-product is the quality of the writing: only God could use human writers to pack so much meaning into so few words. As a follower of Jesus, my verb of choice is “trust”, rather than “have faith.” I prefer the idea of putting my life at risk for Jesus, rather than just hanging onto a truth. This proverb urges a twin trust. It tells me to “trust in Lord”: #1 “with all your heart” — with my gut, my core, my innermost motivation; and #2 “in all my ways” — the totality of how I live my life. Religion is not about trusting God with some of my heart and some of my ways. “The Lord” wants it all. We had a great moment yesterday in Minnesota. Our University football coach Jerry Kill resigned because he couldn’t take the epilepsy meds he needs to save his life and think clearly enough to run the team. The paper says he quit for health reasons — wrong — he quit because of integrity. He wept and talked about God throughout the hour-long news conference and concluded with a line that went something like this: “It’s health, not wealth… and God not job.” He didn’t quote this proverb, but he sure embodied it. When we do “trust the Lord with all your heart” it shows up in “all your ways” and God makes us able to walk all the very difficult right paths.
Lord, I can’t trust you for tomorrow, because it’s not here yet. I can only trust you with today. I want to reach for trusting you more and more in my heart and ways, and grow toward the all you deserve as my Lord. Amen.
