Trust in the Lord.....

"Trust in the Lord with all your heart and lean not on your own understanding."  Proverbs 3:5

That Solomon was one smart man. The Proverbs are laced with gems of wisdom like the one above, and we would do well to make their applications to every aspect of our lives. They are exceptional for the new Christian  in determining right paths for the future. They are wonderful for individuals and families and businesses and governments and churches. 

If you have lived life for very long, you know there will be difficulties and obstacles which confront everyone.  Situations and problems will stare us in the face and we will think there are no solutions. Even with this kind of thinking, we still insist on trying to be smart enough and big enough to get ourselves out of every dilemma. The advice of Solomon, in one of the most often quoted verses from Proverbs, is to trust in the Lord with all of your heart. 

Recently we looked in the New Testament book, known as the Gospel of Luke, and saw the primary commands which lead to inheriting eternal life, are to love God and to love our neighbor. In the command to love God, we are told to love him with all of our heart.

I can think of no greater coupling of scripture than the one to love God (Luke 10), and the one to trust God (Proverbs 3).  If we could come to experience the love of God for us, and love Him as we are commanded, then place our complete trust in Him, we would be well on the way to face anything and everything that confronts us in life. 

The instruction from Solomon doesn't stop here. He continues by encouraging us to not lean on our own understanding. Can you see how this ties directly to the first part of the verse? The real reason we are to place our trust in the Lord, is because we cannot rely on our own understanding. Even the most intelligent among us, the most powerful, the most informed, the most experienced, still need to avoid a dependence on their own understanding. 

A lot of the teaching from Proverbs center around the subject of wisdom and making wise choices and decisions. Here in the verse we are considering today, the wise solution to life is to place our trust in the Lord and not in our own understanding. Solomon would have you to know it is God whom we can trust, and the wise servant will be so closely in relationship with God that you can count on Him to be with you.

I don't know if you are new in your spiritual journey, or have been a Christian for years, the advice from Solomon is helpful in every step you take, and in every aspect of every day in your life. Memorize the verse and depend on it for the strength you need. 

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