Trust in the LORD with all your heart,
and do not rely on your own insight.
In all your ways acknowledge him,
and he will make straight your paths.
Do not be wise in your own eyes;
fear the LORD and turn away from evil.
It will be a healing for your flesh
and a refreshment for your body.
A mentor and good friend, my senior in more ways than one often tells me something like, “Trust God,” although the way he expresses it seems better than just that. The words you hope go deep down into your soul, your very being, and change you, a likely gradual change with many fits and starts, steps forward and a step or two back. It seems to us as humans that life is up to us. We either make it work or not, do the right thing or fail to do it. But the wisdom of Proverbs has a different take on this.
First, the necessity of a wholehearted, unreserved trust in God. Well, what are we going to get perfect in this life (or I wonder myself, in any life, for that matter)? We should never look for some kind of perfection in trying to “trust and obey.” It should be a commitment. Something like, “God, I really don’t get this well. It doesn’t jive with my experience. But I’m committed to it, entirely so, as much as I know how, only through your grace and help.” Something like that.
The next word is just as important, because when push comes to shove, we just naturally go to our default. We’re not to lean or rely on our own insight. It seems like some serious unlearning is likely in play here for most of us. I will grant exceptions, like in the case of my wife, who has the most wonderful, childlike (not childish) faith in God. For whatever reasons, although I think I’ve made significant progress, I still struggle in my faith. I like to understand just how things work and lacking that, I find it hard to trust. It seems to me that I have to accept that there’s something of mystery, mysticism, just not being able to grasp exactly all that is at play here, God’s ways, so that I have to trust both the process and outcome that is in God’s hands, and that, in spite of the inevitable mistakes I’ll make along the way.
Next is the word that we’re to, in my words, look to God in all of our circumstances, with the promise that God will make straight our paths. The NET footnote (verse 6) is helpful here. I think the NIV and NLT are also helpful here.
in all your ways submit to him,
and he will make your paths straight.
Seek his will in all you do,
and he will show you which path to take.
Acknowledging God means to depend on, trust in, and be obedient/submissive to. I like the idea in the NLT of seeking God’s will in all we do, but I admit, I’m a bit skeptical of the rendering suggesting that God will show us which path to take. Maybe that is the case in the sense that as we apply wisdom, we can make a good, reasonable decision at that moment in time, the process not free from trial and error, and never infallible. And as it says elsewhere in Proverbs (11:14; 15:22), not apart from the wise counsel of others. At the very least, God will honor our full commitment to trust and obey God, insofar as we understand that.
The final word here is to not be wise in our own eyes, but to fear God and turn away from evil, with the promise that as we do so, we will be refreshed in body and spirit. I do experience something of this, even if not as much as I should, due to my all too often weak faith. No matter what hangs over my head, or what lies ahead, I can find something of God’s rest.
As my brother, friend and mentor keeps reminding me, “Trust God.” Yes, it may seem trite, something many of us have heard in some form or another since our childhood days in Sunday School. But it can make a world of difference, the difference we definitely need.
Jesus community 