Intentional Leaning

Proverbs 3:5-6
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.

It takes intentional thinking to not lean on your own understanding. To walk by faith and not by sight. To trust in the unseen, the unknown.

Diminishing what you see in the natural by developing in the unseen takes skill. Not denying what is there naturally, but diminishing it. Lighting up the other part of the room. The unseen room where God dwells.

Trust by nature is risky.

Given to much time to think you will start to rehearse past experiences. You will remember how things didn’t work out so well. The result of this thinking is broken trust.

Trust gets set to the side when we start trying to “figure out” what to do. Or how to do something to bring about the desired results we want.

Revision Your Life

What if I told you that it was possible to reprogram what you see?

Whatever you focus on gets renewed and developed.

So, wouldn’t it make sense that what you starve dries up. It begins to wither away because it hasn’t been fed. All living things are fed. The more you feed it the more it grows, it gets deeper and gets stronger.

The first thing we see in this passage is the call to give your heart in trust to the unseen one. Opening your heart up to the possibilities.

Second, is to learn to stop relying on self and our best effort with the dead works of thinking it to death. And then overthinking it.

Our fruitless efforts of leaning on our own understanding leaves us feeling frustrated and divided. Still unsure of the direction needed, we stand at the crossroads and scream, “Snap. I just want to know what to do and where to go.”

Know Where to Lean

Sandwiched in between trusting the Lord with all your heart is the command to “not lean on your own understanding.” On the other side, shoring up the backside of this passage is the call to acknowledge Him.

That’s it. Welcome him in. Welcome him into “all your ways.” Not just the cleaned up pretty church version. I promise you He is more interested in your realness than he is moved by your religiousness.

All Your Ways

All our ways means all our ways, the good, bad and the ugly. The high road, the low road. The singing Hallelujah and the days we spit at the cat. Your bad days are no match for the King of Kings. He mastered them. He did it for you.

Acknowledge him in them because He wants to take the load off and direct your paths. Why? Love. Just a big ole squeeze of love to set you on the right path.

No more dead ends. No more false starts. Seeing the light at the end of a tunnel. No more u-turns.

Trusting with the heart

Refusing to trust in myself more than God

Knowing He will direct my paths.

Does He sprinkle fairy dust along the path? Nope. Sometimes, I gotta kick obstacles outta the way.

Does Oz meet me there?

Nope! But renewing my mind about what God says about me keeps me on the path. It keeps me trusting. Keeps me seeing. Keeps me walking in the light.

I am different. Dependence comes easier. Trust comes more natural. Paths are forged as I just keep walking.

Next time you’re faced with what to do. Surrender first. Give it to him and trust the path to be made clear.

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