Know God’s Ways
Posted by Sandy in Christian Living, God's ways, Trusting God, tags: James, Proverbs5 Trust in the LORD with all your heart
and lean not on your own understanding;
6 in all your ways acknowledge him,
and he will direct your paths
Proverbs 3:5-6
Trust Him, and Not Your Own Understanding
God is trustworthy. Our own understanding is not always so. He is the Creator who knows the big picture. We are the created who see our small part. Trusting Him with all our heart and not leaning on our own understanding is not only biblical, it’s logical.
But how do we go from trusting him and not leaning on our own knowledge of a situation to actually knowing what to do? That’s where the next verse comes in.
“In All Your Ways Acknowledge Him”
I am immediately struck by the word “all” in this verse. In ALL my ways I’m to acknowledge Him…not just the beginning of my ways, or the middle of my ways, or the end of my ways after I’ve likely messed things up. No, I’m to trust Him throughout the entire process.
In addition, I’m to acknowledge Him in all that I do, not just those things that I feel like I need His help on. I don’t know about you, but I am most prone to forget to acknowledge God in all my ways when I’m doing something that I’ve done before. I don’t think it consciously, but my attitude becomes one of “This is a no brainer – I just have to do this, this, and this…” and then I start working on it.
Warren Wiersbe talks about this. He says that “we may think our own wisdom is sufficient, but it is not. We need the wisdom of God…Even the most devout among us become atheistic in this regard…we put our common sense on the throne and then attach God’s name to it. We do lean to our own understanding instead of trusting God with all our hearts.” (Wiersbe’s Expository Outlines of the Old Testament)
He essentially says we act like atheists – those who don’t even believe God exists – when we trust on our own understanding instead of acknowledging God and leaning on His wisdom.
God promises wisdom to those who ask for it. Under the influence of the Holy Spirit, James wrote, “If any of you lacks wisdom, he should ask God, who gives generously to all without finding fault.” (James 1:5) God says he will give wisdom generously. And He doesn’t “find fault” with us for asking – I believe He actually takes delight in us asking for wisdom, as any other parent does when his or her child asks for their wisdom.
The word “acknowledge” doesn’t mean what it means in contemporary society. It’s much more than the nod of the head, a handshake, or a raising of the eyebrows in recognition. It’s even more than a “welcome” hug. The root of the word is “know” – it means “know the Lord” – “in all your ways, know the Lord” so that His ways can become your ways. In the second blog of this series, I stressed the need to get to know God better because we are most likely to trust someone when we know him or her better.
God is the One outside creation – He knows the beginning from the end. He knows what unexpected difficulties there are along the way. He can navigate around them. Acknowledge Him in all that you do so that He can lead you around those unexpected difficulties. More about that in the next blog…see you then.
Entries (RSS)