If you could ask God for a gift, what would you ask him for? I am sure some answers are a car, good grades, go viral on Tik Tok, trip to Disney World, 1,000 dollars, and of course I would ask God to take my student debt away.... listen, you either know the struggle or eventually will. There was someone in the Bible who did get the gift He desired. King Solomon asked God for wisdom and God granted him this gift. God told Solomon since He did not ask for wealth, a long life, or anything selfish He would grant this to him (2 Chronicles 1:11-12). In fact, God told him He would make him unlike any other King of Israel because he be the wisest (1st Kings 3:10-13). Which I believe already states that God cares more about what He is doing in you versus what He wants to give you. So, Solomon became one of the wisest people to ever live. And Solomon contributed to the book of Proverbs, which is a part of the wisdom literature of the Bible. Now Scholars believe there were over 3,000 proverbs throughout all Solomons writings, but the Holy Spirit specifically chose a few of them to be in the book of Proverbs in which there are 31 chapters.
Now the verse we are about to look at is not quite a new verse. In fact, if you’ve grown up in Church there is no way you haven’t heard this verse before, but I ask you to allow the Holy Spirit to speak to you with this verse in a new way.
King Solomon wrote this:
Trust in the Lord with all your heart and lean not on your own understanding; in all your ways submit to him, and he will make your paths straight.
Do not be wise in your own eyes; fear the Lord and shun evil.
Proverbs 3:5-7
I love the first part of this verse especially because the text states to Trust in the Lord with all your heart. We should consider ourselves beyond blessed that we have a God that is trustworthy, we have a God we can trust because from the first book of the Bible Genesis to the last book of the Bible, Revelation to now, He is the same. Our God does not change, He is faithful to keep every promise He has spoken over not just my life, but yours as well. Every promise He has given us, we can be secure that God will come through on. That is powerful because we live in a world today, where you can’t trust everything, or everyone, friends. We all go through times where we do not know who we can turn to, but we have a God that we can always look back to because He is a trustworthy God. And since He is a trustworthy God we must know, we cannot go 50/50 on God. So often I fear we say things like this: “Oh I trust God, but just in case I have to put my trust in this as well in case things don’t work out” or “ I need a Plan B or Plan C, in case God doesn’t come through” but that is not how God wants us to live. He wants us to trust Him with ALL our hearts, that means with everything in us God wants us to fully rely on Him. We must not put our trust in anything but the Lord because He is the only one you can trust that will not fail you. If you are facing a hard situation today in life let me, tell you something, stop looking at other things to trust other than God can make sure your full trust is in Him. If you have a Plan B, then that means you do not trust Plan A.
The next verse says to then lean not on your own understanding but in all your ways submit to him and He will make your path straight. What does that mean for me?
We can only see the right here right now; we can only see life from our perspective, but God sees everything. God knows the beginning and the end of our life, before we were even born Scripture says that all our days were in His book (Psalm 139), truly in my classical theism era. Have any of you ever seen a tapestry? A tapestry is a long quilt that usually has little stories that lead to one big giant story. That is our life, we can only see the little moment and story we are in, but God can see every part of our story that is why we need to lean on Him. We need to lean on Him because when I am tired, when I feel like I am alone in life, when my anxiety is high, when I feel like giving up, when I am struggling in school/work or when I just do not know where I am going in life...I look to the almighty God who will see me through every trial in my life. I can lean on God and give Him my life and He will show me the way to go this Proverb says. If you are looking for where to get directions? You can look right to the Word of God because it will guide you if you allow it to and if you allow it to become your life. We don’t have to keep fighting to figure things out, God has already taken that burden upon Himself for you. Aren’t you tired friend of thinking you must figure it out on your own? Let me tell you something, there is a reason Jesus doesn’t want us to figure it out on our own and it is because Trusting in our own ways will eventually lead to sin.
We do not need to sin to get through this life. Jesus made a way, so we did not have to sin. Yes, we will sin, but when we Trust God, we don’t have to, the next part of the passage says,
““Do not be wise in your own eyes; fear the Lord and shun evil.”
Well, What does that mean, “fear the Lord”? I am supposed to be afraid of God?
It’s time for a little Bible lesson. There are two fears talked about in the Bible, one example is in 2nd Timothy 1:7 when it says, “For God has given us not a Spirit of fear but of love, power and self-control”, that is not the fear this verse is talking about. That fear is the fear of man or being afraid. The fear this Proverb is mentioning means to fear being aware from God, to have a respect and love for Him that we won’t sin, that we will trust His ways. Moses says in Exodus 20:20 (ESV) when he is speaking to the Israelites, “Moses said to the people, “Do not fear, for God has come to test you, that the fear of him may be before you, that you may not sin.” but if we look at another translation it states in The Message translation Moses spoke to the people: “Don’t be afraid. God has come to test you and instill a deep and reverent awe within you so that you won’t sin.” ...see the difference here there is a fear that leads to being afraid and a fear of the Lord that leads to loving and respecting Him so that we would not want to sin. Sin will take us farther from the path the Lord has for us. Trusting the Lord means having a fear of the Lord is trusting the Lord because it means that you know His ways are better and His ways will lead you to exactly you want to be, and I know many of you are thinking, “You have no idea what is going on in my life, you do not get how messy my life is, my situation is, my friendships are, I am too far gone to be going to God” or “Barrett, you do not know how much I am struggling right now, how do I trust God in this all mess?” And you are 100 percent correct, I don’t know, but God does. God sees all, let me tell you, God is not scared of your doubts. God wants you to bring your doubts to Him. That is the gracious God we serve, even when we doubt Him, He wants you to run to Him because He is our Father Afterall. If you are doubting Him and struggling to trust Him, maybe you need to ask God to help you.
We need to ask God to give us faith in Him because Faith is a gift from God, and Hebrews 11:6 says without faith it is impossible to please God. Ask Jesus to give you faith in Him, when we ask, He is so gracious to give us good gifts, and why would you not want this gift? Why would you keep wanting to struggle? You do not have to anymore; all you must do is trust in the Lord with all your heart and submit your plans to Him.
I ask you saint who is reading this blog, take some time today to sit at the feet of Jesus and let Him speak to you. Ask Him “Is there anything I am not trusting you with Lord?” or “Father, I am really struggling with this, will you help me trust you got this?” I promise you; I PROMISE you; Jesus is so graceful and so faithful that you will walk away knowing that our God is beyond trustworthy. I pray this blog spoke to you today and inspired you to spend your life at the feet of Jesus...
Faithfully,
Barrett
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