Trust in the Lord with all your heart and do not lean on your own understanding, in all your ways acknowledge him, and he will make your path straight.
— proverbs 3:5-6
I don’t know about you, but for me I’m tired of going down the wrong path.
When I was younger it seemed that I had a billion years of life ahead of me so I wasn’t too concerned about making the wrong decisions. Unless of course, the decision may cause me some pain, put me in debt or land me in front of a judge. As I have gotten older, I have realized that it is a lot better to make the correct decision from the get go then it is to recover from a wrong decision. Often times, we don’t even realize we are making the wrong decision until we come to the end of our path and discover that the outcome we were hoping for didn’t happen. Depending upon the decision it could take a long time to make that discovery, and then we need to decide if we are going to make a correction or start new.
Another consideration of this decision making process is the influence of our past, friends, family and culture. Lets face it, sometimes we let a lot of factors influence our decisions, some of which aren’t healthy. Unhealthy influences have a tendency to create unhealthy decisions. I don’t know about you, but as much as I don’t mind learning from my mistakes, I now believe its much better if the mistake isn’t made in the first place. Sometimes the best way to do this is by getting rid of outside influences.
There is only one way to avoid outside influences and that is to only follow the lead and the direction of God. How do we do this? By trusting him and acknowledging him and its very difficult to do one without the other. Trust is always gained through time, so we need to begin to acknowledge God in our decisions in order to develop trust in him. Acknowledging him is allowing him to be an active participant in the decisions we make and not leaning only upon our own understanding. Leaning not on our own understanding can be very difficult when we have trust issues. Many of us have been hurt, so trust becomes a barrier to understanding because we don’t know how to allow God to work in our lives without the fear of getting hurt. If we are afraid of God, then our understanding of him is skewed so its difficult to lean in on him. All of these factors; trust, understanding and acknowledgement work hand in hand when we are allowing God to guide us.
So, if you are tired of wandering in the desert then start working on trust, understanding and acknowledgement of God. Start with acknowledging God exists, loves you and wants the best for you. Practice doing this every day and you will soon uncover trust. Once trust is uncovered then you can test God by allowing him to coach you in your decisions. Practice hearing his voice and allowing him to reveal his ways. Once you trust his voice and start practicing his ways you will gain understanding of how he works in your life. As these three factors are developed and worked together you will quickly discover how God creates a straight path out of your decisions.
All of this requires presenting our choices to him, waiting on his response, listening to his response, acting on his response, and then working through the outcome of acting on his response. Are you patient enough with this process? If not, start there.
Breathlife 