Proverbs 3:5-6 “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 make your paths straight.”

When we lean into Christ we are saying we believe that God is in control, God has a plan, God will see us through, God will give us the strength, peace, help and so on as we need it in life. We rest and trust in his good plan for us even when we do not understand it or it hurts us or confuses us.

When we have decisions to make and cannot trust the advice of others we need only to lean into Christ, seek his counsel and wait for his answer. We know we can trust God, after all, he is the one who knit us together has put a plan in action on the day we were born and will know better than even we the right answer and direction to take. He knows our deepest hearts desires we don’t. We think we know, but there are God-breathed things inside of us that we sometimes cannot see. Our circumstances or opinions of ourselves keeps us from seeing the whole picture.

If we take everything to God in prayer, read his word and listen closely he will say yes, no or wait. His desire for us is so much greater than our own. If you belong to Christ then our heavenly Father sees us through the blood of his son Jesus. He sees the finished product the holiness and righteousness that we have because of Jesus. We see only what greets us in the mirror, the mistakes that have defined us, the words that have hurt us, the actions of others that have crippled us in some way. So, because of that, we cannot trust ourselves to really know what is best.

The only way we can truly discern what is right and good is to spend time with the Lord. To lean in close to him and allow him to hold us up through this life. Life is hard and trying to do it on your own can cause us to have great failures. Been there done that!

When we do what verse six says: “in all your ways acknowledge him,” it says that “he will make your paths straight.” When we try to restrict or ignore the nudging’s of the Holy Spirit and go it alone it almost always goes wrong, or at least that is my findings. Christ needs to be in all we do, every aspect of our lives surrendered to him. His desire for us is good, his plan is perfect. That is what the word says, so why do we ignore it?

Does this mean life will be a bowl of cherries? No, you will have struggles, disappointments, sadness, pain, guilt, etc in just the right amounts that are needed to refine you, grow you, stretch you, change you, and move you closer to Jesus.

I would rather lean in close and listen hard than to go it alone and find myself in the pig’s pen with a stench that is hard to shake or run home with my head down and my shoulders carrying a weight that should not be there and know that discipline is coming. Why? Because God disciplines those he loves. Proverbs 3 11-12 “My son, do not despise the Lord’s discipline and do not resent his rebuke, 12 because the Lord disciplines those he loves, as a father the son he delights in.”

Trust me when I say I have gone it alone. I made up my mind I was going to ignore what I knew God was saying and plow ahead. He let me, He never left me, but trust me also when I say the cost to self and others was high. The discipline God gave was hard to take, the time needed to recover and move ahead long. Was I alone, no. Did God pile on condemnation, no. Was the long road back easy, no. Did God still love me, yes! Was doing it my way the best way, NO! Do I still have moments where my actions cause me to feel sad and ashamed, yes! Not because God makes me feel that way, but because I knew I was wrong, and as a child of God I knew I had trampled on the grace given to me.

I am so far from perfect and my flesh at times wants what it wants, but as I have grown in Christ, and continued to read and pray my flesh gets its way less and less. My desire is to please God in all I do, think and say. I want to hear him say “well done” not only when I reach heaven, but when I lay my head on my pillow at night. I want to rest easy knowing I did my best to “lean in” to “acknowledge him” in all my ways.

I want God’s best while I trudge through this dry land. I want to listen to my Father’s wisdom so I do not have to go over the roughest part of the path. I want a straight way. My eyes looking to him, my body and soul leaning close, resting in his arms, letting him call the shots!

I will leave you with these verses from Proverbs 3. Verses 7-8 say: “Do not be wise in your own eyes; fear the Lord and shun evil. 8 This will bring health to your body and nourishment to your bones.” Sounds good to me!!