Trust God With All Your Heart — Or Keep Walking in Circles

Proverbs 3:5–6

Trust in the LORD with all your heart and lean not on your own understanding; in all your ways submit to him, and he will make your paths straight. (NIV)

So much of the hardship in our lives is self-inflicted. The Lord’s promises are clear and true. In our passage today, we see His promise to make our paths straight if we trust Him with all our hearts. This is not something simple. It’s also not something that is easily done. Trusting God with all our heart requires a daily sacrifice to self, a consistent alignment of our thoughts to His Word, and a support system that brings us back when we go astray.

The difficulty, however, does not outweigh the promise — to make our paths straight.

King Solomon would have full knowledge of Israel’s history. He would know how the Israelites did not have the faith to enter the land promised to them by God after He set them free from their Egyptian slavemasters. Rather than moving straight through the wilderness into the “land flowing with milk and honey,” they remained in the wilderness, traveling in circles for 40 years.

As Solomon draws on this memory, he says that if we trust the Lord with all our hearts, God will make our path straight. The path for the Israelites’ disbelief was long and winding, always fatigued from travel, but never getting anywhere. If they had trusted the Lord, then they would have spent no more than a few days in the wilderness and enjoyed the great blessing in the Promised Land.

Have you ever felt like you were just going in circles — always fatigued, but not making any progress? I have felt this way often, but we don’t have to remain stuck. We don’t have to repeat the same mistakes over and over again. We can be set free from our disbelief and walk into a new and greater blessing if we will trust Him with all our hearts.

Trust God with All Your Heart

The heart is the seat of our emotions — our love and hate, passion and pain. To trust God with all our hearts is more than obedience. It is having a passion and love for His ways. Our greatest desire is to do things His way.

We know our hearts are pulled in so many directions. Resisting temptation is not an easy thing to do, but the more we follow His ways, the more we see how beneficial they are — not only to us, but to those in our lives. As we live better, we bless others more. Experiencing the good results of obedience to His ways makes us want to continue in obedience. We begin to love His way, and He makes our path straight.

Prayer

Lord, help my unbelief so I can follow Your precepts in every area of my life. Help me stay out of the wilderness and stay in the land of milk and honey.