Day Thirty
“Trust with all Your Heart”
Trust in the Lord with all your heart and do no lean on your own understanding. In all your ways acknowledge Him and He will make your paths straight.
Proverbs 3:5-6
As we have been studying over the past several weeks we have been challenged to learn to trust God in all circumstances. We have learned to trust Him when everything appears to be going according to our wants and we have also learned to trust Him when our eyes tell us that things are not going according to plan. The hard part is learning how to maintain that trust in any and every situation. This is extremely difficult. Our faith can ebb and flow with the tide of our state of affairs.
Today we are challenged to trust God with all our heart. What that means is that we must come to a place where we trust the Lord with all or the whole of our heart. Now, the word “heart” means a lot more than trusting God with our emotions or trusting God when we feel like trusting Him. It means that we trust Him with our minds, our wills, and our inner self. To take this another step forward, we are to trust or be confidently secure that God will be there for us.
Many times in my life when I have needed faith the most it seemed I trusted God the least. My prayer for all of us is that we have learned and are continuing to learn that we can be confidently secure that He will be there when we need Him the most. There might be multiple things in our lives that try to destroy this trust, but God is leading us to become men and women, students and children, who trust the Lord with all our being concerning every situation in our lives.
I just came back to my office after a meeting in which my faith was called into question. This was not done in a malicious way, but my faith was waning on an issue we were meeting about. Now as I sit down to work on this challenge, I see the truth. I was in a meeting discussing a critical issue that concerns our church, and I spoke with some uncertainty about a solution to the question we were addressing. Now in hindsight I can see the doubt that surfaced in my heart and expressed itself through my spoken words. I have had to stop and repent of the doubt I expressed and let faith grab hold of my mind, my heart, and my mouth.
Our trust in God is continually being assaulted. That is why it is so critical that we stay in the scriptures, remind ourselves over and over of the character and the nature of God, as well as hear the testimonies of God’s faithfulness in the lives of others around us. Each of these is a tool to help us bolster our confidence in God’s ability to intervene. This is a life-long battle, and there is never a time when we have simply “arrived.” Different trials and different tests require different levels of faith. Faith can be depleted when we prayerfully gain victory in one area, only to turn around and find another faith challenge in a different area. We pray, trust Bible promises, and in the end we have used up precious faith. If we are not continually being refueled, renewed, reenergized, and revived with fresh faith, it easy to see why we begin to doubt.
In 1 Kings 19, the prophet Elijah had faith to pray down fire on Mount Carmel and then turned right around and began to doubt God when his life was threatened by King Ahab’s wife Jezebel. Even after such a triumphant victory on God’s behalf, Jezebel’s threats drove Elijah to the point of being suicidal. Elijah ran for his life and secluded himself in the desert, where he was reminded once again of God’s power and provision. If we are going to trust the Lord with all our hearts, we had better be devoting all our hearts to seeking Him and growing in our knowledge of Him. It is during these critical times that we are strengthened for the battles ahead.
Imagine a football player showing up to the first game of the season without having participated in one practice, or having spent the summer running, lifting weights, and doing agility work. That player will not be able to operate to the best of his abilities because he will be out of shape. Many Christians run through life out of shape when it comes to trusting the Lord because they have not been involved in spiritual training. On the other hand, when an athlete has spent the time to prepare his body and mind for the competition, it is a beautiful thing to watch that athlete achieve peak performance in the critical moment of testing in the game.
We can learn more from these verses in Proverbs. If we trust the Lord with our whole hearts then we do not have to give into the temptation to lean on our own understanding or to take matters into our own hands. We patiently wait on God to intervene and give clear direction about what we are to do and not to do.
Recently while praying through a burden, I found myself confused. I had several good ideas running through my head but I really did not know the best course to take. Instead of leaning on my own understanding, or to put it another way, instead of leaning on my ability to reason and deduce logically the best solution, I asked the Lord what to do. His direction in response was unexpected and challenging but I know it was from Him. If I had taken matters into my hands I would have fouled things up royally.
I am not saying that living a life of faith is the course of least resistance but I am telling you it is the best way. God knows what is best and He can be trusted with every scenario. God’s direction may be anything but rational, it may not make any sense to your mind, and well-meaning people around you may seek to discourage you from following God’s counsel. But if you acknowledge God or if you seek Him and determine to distinguish the voice and counsel of God above all others, He will prove Himself faithful over and over again. Every single time He will prove Himself faithful. He will make paths straight. That simply means that God will go before you and when you have exercised your confident security in Him above your own abilities and reasoning, He will give you success and a pleasant path. Who wouldn’t want that? Remember it all goes back to trust!
Steps to Trust and Obey:
How would you define trust in God?
What are you facing where you really need confident security in the Lord?
How have you been tempted to take matters into your own hands?
Does God’s counsel to you seem at odds with your own logic or the counsel of others? What are you going to do about that? Which counsel will you listen to and follow? Why?
What is the Lord speaking to you? Is He calling you to take any steps of obedience and if so what are they? How will you respond?
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