Trust in the Lord with all your heart, and lean not on your own understanding; In all your ways acknowledge Him; and He shall direct your paths. Do not be wise in your own eyes; fear the LORD and depart from evil. Proverbs 3: 5-7
Heavenly Father, if we can understand this promise we know that we will be blessed; so please make it plain to us we pray, in the precious name of Jesus. Amen
Our promise for today is tucked between two excellent pieces of counsel: “Trust in the Lord with all your heart,” and, “Do not be wise in your own eyes.” Do you realize how much pain, and stress, and misunderstanding. we would avoid if we would just “give heed” to these words? If we do, this is what we can expect as a result, “He shall direct your paths.” Yes my friends, when we are ready to trust God completely, and realize that we do not have all the answers, God will be our Guide through life. When we trust in the Lord wholeheartedly, we will not be prone to “lean…on [our] own understanding.” I believe that both sacred history, as well as secular history, is filled with the experiences of those who tried to do it their way. You will agree with me that the results are not too encouraging. Today we will look at a couple of examples of those who did it their way; tomorrow we will look at those who “in all their ways acknowledge[d] [God].”
Cain. Cain and his brother Abel brought their offerings to the Lord. The Lord accepted Abel’s offering, but not Cain’s. So Cain became angry (Genesis 4: 4, 5) and eventually killed his brother Abel (8). There is something in the conversation between God and Cain that reveals that God had instructed Cain regarding what was expected of him, “So the Lord said to Cain, ‘Why are you angry? And why has your countenance fallen? If you do well, will you not be accepted” (6a)? “If you do well.” If you do what I ask you. If you bring an offering according to My requirement I will accept it. In other words, “there is the right way,” and there is your way. You see Cain, if you trust Me wholeheartedly, and do not rely on what you believe is best, I will accept your offering. God loves us dear friends; and anything He requires of us, is always for our good, no exceptions! When we decide to do it our way, we deny ourselves a blessing!
Here is the other half of the counsel: “Do not be wise in your own eyes; fear the LORD and depart from evil.” How often we are sure that we know what is best for us. The following Bible character provides us with an example of this:
Saul. What is truly sad about Saul, is that when God chose him as king over Israel, to all appearances, Saul seemed so humble! On his coronation day he hid among the “baggages” (1 Samuel 10: 20, NRSV). Samuel had to go and search for him to present him to the people. When some of the people rejected him from being their king, and the others wanted to put them to death, Saul would not hear of it (10: 27; 11: 12, 13). Yet not much later, we find him offering sacrifices to the Lord; a duty assigned exclusively to the prophet Samuel (1 Samuel 13: 8-13). He disobeyed a direct command from the Lord (1 Samuel 15: 1-3, 7-9); made an excuse for his disobedience (13-15), and blamed the people for his behavior (20, 21). The kingdom was taken away from him (23, 28) and after visiting the witch of Endor (1 Samuel 28: 7, 8), he died in battle (1 Samuel 31: 1-6). “There is a way that seems right to a man, but its end is the way of death” (Proverbs 14: 12).
May God teach us how to trust Him with all our hearts. Then will come to pass the words of the wise man, “But the path of the just is like the shining sun, that shines ever brighter unto a perfect day” (Proverbs 4: 18).