Thursday, January 27, 2011
Issues of Life #7
Trust in the Lord by Andy Taylor
“Trust in the Lord with all your heart and lean not on your own understanding; in all your ways acknowledge Him, and He will direct your paths.” Proverbs 3:5-6
It can be simple and complicated at the same time. By God’s own design we are created in such a way as to be able to put our trust in Him. That part of the puzzle is pretty clear, and when we look at it from the proper perspective, it’s also pretty simple. But to learn to bring all our faculties into line and to actually put our entire trust in the Lord goes against the nature of the flesh and thereby becomes one of the great challenges of our lives. But the writer of Proverbs encourages us to do something that is absolutely do-able for born-again believers. In fact, to activate our trust in the Lord it just takes a simple decision by faith to begin the process. The problem is that we learn too early in life to put our trust in other things. And whatever those things are, they are sure to fail somewhere down the road. So for most it requires a total reversal of what our culture has taught us. That makes it much harder than it should be. God, in His infinite wisdom, has created us in such a way as to give us the final say in the matter. We’re free moral agents as the religious experts classify us. That just means that even though God has a ‘perfect plan’ for our lives, we must make the choice, or choices as it turns out to be in the final analysis, to participate in that plan. When we come to the Lord through salvation we should choose to engage with “all our heart”. It can happen that way, and at that point, but I believe in most cases it is worked out in an ongoing process that starts at the point of salvation and lasts for the rest of our lives. We learn as we go through varying circumstances in life that God is real and that He never mishandles our trust, as we place it in Him.
We are also encouraged by the above Scripture to “lean not on our own understanding”. That’s a pretty challenging concept. Sounds simple but when we set to the task we find that it’s harder than it sounds. We gain knowledge, understanding and experience as we live out our lives. If we’re not careful we will put our trust in our own abilities and in our own resources. But the adventurous walk of faith that the Father has destined us to experience can only be successfully achieved by putting our entire trust in Him. We should engage in the simplicity of this verse at face value. And when we do that, “He will direct our paths”!
Trust in the Lord by Andy Taylor
“Trust in the Lord with all your heart and lean not on your own understanding; in all your ways acknowledge Him, and He will direct your paths.” Proverbs 3:5-6
It can be simple and complicated at the same time. By God’s own design we are created in such a way as to be able to put our trust in Him. That part of the puzzle is pretty clear, and when we look at it from the proper perspective, it’s also pretty simple. But to learn to bring all our faculties into line and to actually put our entire trust in the Lord goes against the nature of the flesh and thereby becomes one of the great challenges of our lives. But the writer of Proverbs encourages us to do something that is absolutely do-able for born-again believers. In fact, to activate our trust in the Lord it just takes a simple decision by faith to begin the process. The problem is that we learn too early in life to put our trust in other things. And whatever those things are, they are sure to fail somewhere down the road. So for most it requires a total reversal of what our culture has taught us. That makes it much harder than it should be. God, in His infinite wisdom, has created us in such a way as to give us the final say in the matter. We’re free moral agents as the religious experts classify us. That just means that even though God has a ‘perfect plan’ for our lives, we must make the choice, or choices as it turns out to be in the final analysis, to participate in that plan. When we come to the Lord through salvation we should choose to engage with “all our heart”. It can happen that way, and at that point, but I believe in most cases it is worked out in an ongoing process that starts at the point of salvation and lasts for the rest of our lives. We learn as we go through varying circumstances in life that God is real and that He never mishandles our trust, as we place it in Him.
We are also encouraged by the above Scripture to “lean not on our own understanding”. That’s a pretty challenging concept. Sounds simple but when we set to the task we find that it’s harder than it sounds. We gain knowledge, understanding and experience as we live out our lives. If we’re not careful we will put our trust in our own abilities and in our own resources. But the adventurous walk of faith that the Father has destined us to experience can only be successfully achieved by putting our entire trust in Him. We should engage in the simplicity of this verse at face value. And when we do that, “He will direct our paths”!
Labels: Choose, Faith, Free, Trust, Understanding, Wisdom
posted by Todd # 9:05 PM 
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