Trust in the Lord...

Solomon, in his profound wisdom instructed us to trust in the Lord. (Proverbs 3:5) Trust is a very difficult thing to truly exhibit. To trust someone else you must first relinquish your trust in yourself. This is exceedingly difficult for us humans. Many times the lessons that life has taught us have led us to the conclusion that the only person we can truly trust is ourselves.

However, as it is with many of our carnal conclusions, nothing could be further from the truth. The Lord is the only one that we can truly trust, even above ourselves. The problem is that true trust in him is often a last resort for us. Like the woman with the issue of blood, we tend to exhaust every possible avenue available to us before we finally place our full trust in the Lord.

Why is this? Mainly because we have a predisposition to trust in what we can see and feel. We have been conditioned to trust our natural senses. We use them to define our world as well as our possibilities and impossibilities. In many cases we have simply learned that it is safest to walk by sight. We have learned that we can trust what we see and understand. We have learned that it is safest to sail in waters that allow us to keep the shore in sight.

However, the wisdom of Proverbs declares, "Trust in the LORD with all your heart, and do not lean on your own understanding." (Proverbs 3:5 ESV) What a difficult piece of instruction! Not only are we commanded to trust the Lord rather than our own ability, we are also admonished not to trust our own understanding.

Solomon has directed us to subjugate our senses to our faith in God. Trust the Lord, he declares, beyond, or even in spite of, your own understanding. Ignore what you can see, or understand, and trust in the Lord. Ignore what the balance sheet says and trust God. Ignore what the doctor says and trust God. Ignore what the lawyers may say and trust in the Lord. Ignore what the economy declares and place your trust in God. What a powerful admonition. It's much easier to write it, however, than it is to live it.

The bottom line is that the instruction to trust the Lord is very difficult to assimilate into our own realities. However, the record of both history and the scriptures bear evidence to the fact that when we ignore this simple wisdom bad things are prone to happen. Trust is not an easy thing. But it is a necessary part of our walk with God. Only by trust can we truly walk in the places that he has determined for our lives.

Abraham was promised a child after his own understanding told him it was too late for he and Sarah to have children. Abraham fell prey to the tendency to trust our own understanding over the word of the Lord. He came to the conclusion that he needed to help God out. The next move that Abraham made caused him to father a problem instead of a promise. Because he failed to trust the Lord, he set in motion a struggle that continues to plague our world even to this day. All because he trusted what he could understand instead of trusting the Lord.

Perhaps that's why Paul says in 2 Corinthians 5:7 that "we walk by faith, not by sight." This is the key to following God's will and way in your life. Sometimes he's going to take us in directions that, if we heeded our own understanding, we would never choose to go. Sometimes he's going to lead us into things that we, according to our own understanding, would do all that we could to avoid. However, the simple truth of the matter is that the road that leads us into God's will for our lives sometimes leads through dry wells and barren wildernesses. How will we ever survive those journeys unless we learn, perhaps somewhere along the way, to trust in the Lord with all of our hearts, and not to lean on our own understanding.

That's where I find myself today. Trusting in the Lord. Walking by faith. Knowing in my heart that "the steps of a good man are ordered by the LORD." (Psalm 37:23 ESV) So, today, I press on...