Tuesday September 1, 2015

Read Proverbs 3:5-6    

Self help programs abound. Visit your local Christian bookstore either in person or on line and you’ll see a plethora of books and recordings on managing anger, temptation, desire and so on. There are a multitude of works written on defeating anger, lust, stress, temptation and so on in 3, 4 or 5 or 10 steps. Apparently all you have to do is work through the x number of steps and you’ll be fine! It’s apparently that easy!

Even though I haven’t read every single self-help book (and I certainly don’t want to disparage them all) I doubt that many of them, if any of them, would contain a chapter on Proverbs 3:5-6. Trusting in God and letting Him work in your life is not the stuff that our self-help, ‘I’m in control’ Christian society wants to hear. Rather than relinquishing control, we want to take charge. We want to grab the reigns and get quickly and painlessly to our desired destination.

The Teacher of the Proverbs in 3:5-6 encourages us to trust in God with our entire being. The ‘heart’ in the ancient Hebrew culture is not the emotional centre that we like to think it is. The heart was the core of the person, the real me, as it were. As such we are encouraged to trust God from the depths of our being. That means we refuse to try to manipulate situations to get our desired end or pathway. It means that we let God do His thing rather than trying to bring our plans and our agenda into the equation. A simple example will suffice. Imagine that a particular congregation is trying to hire person X as their evangelism pastor. This man wants the position but for some reason can’t accept the offer. The church could put into action a series of schemes to make the offer work for them or they could trust God and move onto another person or another position. Such schemes as this ‘get that pastor at all costs’ show that we really don’t trust God. We make the plans and simply expect Him to bless our plans.

The Teacher of the Proverbs then engages in Hebrew poetry, which is often a form of parallelism. Hebrew poetry expresses a thought and then reiterates it in a different way. Rhyming was not the order of the day in poetry as it is today. We are told that we should not lean on our own understanding. This is the exact opposite of trusting wholly and solely in the Lord.

Added to this, we are told to acknowledge God in all our ways, that is in all our decisions. As we do this, God promises to make our paths straight or to direct our paths. This is not to be confused with walking down easy street. The path way that God directs us onto may be rocky and difficult but if it is God’s pathway as opposed to our own, it will bear much fruit in us and for the Kingdom of God.

A congregation that seeks God’s pathways and trusts God even in times of despair and disappointment will be transformational. The people in that congregation will be changed internally and then externally to be more like Christ Jesus. He will be powerfully at work in the lives of those who trust Him with their entire being.

Prayer:

Using today’s Bible passage and notes write down points for

Adoration:

Confession

Thanks

Supplication:

· Think of the decisions your church is currently faced with. Pray that God would enable your church and your leadership to trust in the Lord and to lean not on their own understanding. Pray for the grace to obey God in all things.

· Pray that the pastors in the Indian villages associated with Shiloh Church ministries would be trusting God and obeying Him wholeheartedly. Pray that they would see many converts to the faith and that they would raise up more leaders and preachers. 

 Discussion Questions For Families and Groups

1. What does in mean to trust God with all your heart in layman’s terms?

2. How can we grow in our trust of God?

3. What makes trust in God dangerous with respect to our faith?