5 Trust in the LORD with all your heart, and do not rely on your own insight. 6 In all your ways acknowledge him, and he will make straight your paths.
-Proverbs 3:5-6 NRSV-
Solomon understood that there is a cause-and-effect relationship between the promise of God and their fulfillment. He knew that with almost every promise there is a condition attached to it.
Picture a little child who is learning to walk. His father or mother reaches out a hand and says, “Come to Daddy or Mommy. I won’t let you down. I’ll catch you before you fall.” The term used for this picture is the same word used in Proverbs 3:5-6. It means “to rely upon, to have confidence in someone, to lean upon another.”
When missionary John Patton was translating the New Testament in the New Hebrides, he sought for a word that was the equivalent of this word for trust that the writer of Proverbs 3 used. One day a native came into his hut and, for the first time in his life, saw a chair that the missionary had built. “What is that?” he asked Patton. Patton replied, “chair-you can put your weight on it; it won’t let you down,” and ever so cautiously that native followed Patton’s example and placed his full weight on the chair.
“Ah,” thought Patton, “that concept is what Solomon was saying,” and thus he translated the text of Proverbs, “You can put your full weight on God and not attempt to understand everything. Acknowledge God in everything you do, and God will direct your steps.”
Today, with the pandemic and everything else going on around the world, as in Solomon’s day, our own understanding is often the hindrance to trusting Him, yet if we are convinced that God won’t lie to us, and that the promises of His Word become the key that opens the door to His presence, then we can rely upon His goodness to meet our needs. “We can put our full weight on God and not attempt to understand everything. We can acknowledge God in everything we do, and God will direct our steps.”
Pastor Gideon
