“Trust in the Lord with all your heart and lean not unto your own understanding. In all your ways, acknowledge Him and He will make your paths straight.” Proverbs 3:5-6
Have you ever made a bad decision? Maybe something that you just do without praying or thinking it through?
As you know, I love hiking on the Appalachian Trail. It is not a horribly difficult trail. There are so many books, manuals, and websites to give you advice. You have to try hard to get lost on the Appalachian Trail. For the most part there are white blazes on trees and on rocks, sides of cliffs, sides of buildings, etc. The path is marked out well unless you decide to stray from the path that is laid out before you.
And so it happened. We were shuttled to where we were going to hike and then hike four days back to our car. All was fine until I decided to do something that I knew I shouldn’t do.
We descended the mountain and came upon the campground way, way down in the valley where our car was parked. The trail wound around the campground, then back up the hill, descended a little and then back up and around the mountain. After about 30 minutes of not being any closer to the car other than by dropping elevation, I decided to “lean unto my own understanding.” I decided to go off trail and slide my way down the side of the mountain. Well, to my dismay, it was very steep, and it was no time before I was sliding out of control. I went over a few small ledges, through blackberry bushes, and not quietly! Unfortunately, I plopped right down in the middle of a family reunion campout. They had enjoyed the whole show and even clapped. I literally went off a small ledge and rolled into their campsite. I was praising God that I did not end up on top of their camper.
I should have trusted the path that was laid out before me. I should have trusted the hiking maps and books that tell you everything you should know and do.
Jeremiah 17:9 says “The heart is deceitful beyond all things, and desperately sick. Who can understand it?” God gives us His word to direct our paths. He lays down the path clearly before us. Yet, how many of us take matters into our own hands and decide, like I did, to make my own path? I do not think we intentionally leave God out of our plans. I think it is even worse than that. I think that often we don’t consult God because He does not cross our radar. We end up doing what our heart tells us and we know from Jeremiah that our heart cannot be trusted. Then we make decisions that we thought were a good idea, but in the end, they are not.
Now, let’s be clear, God is not our good luck charm nor is our Bible going to solve all our problems. Having a close relationship with God is going to ensure that we will have a better outlook and even better insight into what His will is for us.
We are faced with trusting God or trusting in our own understanding every day. It might be in the way we treat a coworker or the way we respect people in our family or others around us. It may be when we do not like something and feel free to express our opinion, when in actuality, that opinion does not help the situation. It could be a resistance to change when we are perfectly content in where we are and how things are going.
The Bible is clear that when we trust God with all of our heart, that He will direct our paths. Maybe His path will be longer and maybe it won’t get us where we want to go as soon as we would like, but His path beats tumbling down the side of a mountain.
Brother Greg