What Does It Mean to Trust the Lord with All Your Heart?
“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 straight your paths” Proverbs 3: 5, 6.
On thing I believe this passage means is that when we lean on our own understanding, we won’t do the right thing or be obedient. That’s because obedience and righteousness often look like they will result in loss and harm.
To read the passage for context, click here.
So, if we’re just trusting our own wisdom, or leaning on what logic would dictate, we won’t do the right thing. Obedience and righteousness require trust for this very reason.
What Does It Mean to Trust the Lord with All Your Heart? Obedience
We have to trust that if we obey and do the right thing, God will take care of us. And that He will protect us from harm and loss. Doing the right thing in the face of impending harm is what it means to acknowledge Him in all our ways.
And Him making our paths straight is another way of saying He will take care of us. And protect us in so doing. When we are trusting the Lord, we acknowledge Him in all our ways by being obedient and doing what’s right.
When we are leaning on our own understanding, we won’t obey or do what’s right, because we’re not trusting that the Lord will protect and take care of us.
1 Peter 5: 6 conveys the same idea: “Humble yourselves, therefore, under the mighty hand of God so that at the proper time he may exalt you”.
Trusting God is to Humble Ourselves
We humble ourselves by not leaning on our own understanding, but instead trust God to take care of us if we do the right thing. We humble ourselves by acknowledging Him in all our ways by doing the right thing rather than leaning on our own understanding.
And then He exalts us by making our paths straight. And protecting and taking care of us in the face of the loss and harm that seems to be threatening.
Leaning on our own understanding, and hence not obeying and doing what’s right is the broad path. This path seems easier but ends in destruction (Mathew 7: 13, 14).
The narrow path is the one on which we trust God and do what’s right. We acknowledge Him and obey.
It’s the path of affliction, trouble and suffering tribulation. This is what the word narrow literally means according to Strong’s Expository Dictionary of the New Testament.
But it’s also made straight by the Lord. And leads to life.
King David Knew What It Meant to Trust and Obey
The reason king David tells us to trust and obey is because obedience requires trust. Psalm 4: 5 conveys the same idea. “Offer right sacrifices and put your trust in the Lord”.
We live our lives by one of two paradigms: faith or fear.
By faith we obey and do what’s right. And believe God is going to take care of us.
By fear we lean on our own understanding and allow that to dictate our decisions. Which will be self-protection and self-preservation, AKA the broad path of sin.
Abraham is a good example of someone who lived by faith and didn’t lean on his own understanding. Otherwise, he certainly would not have been willing to sacrifice his son Isaac.
Since it was through Isaac that God’s promise to him would be fulfilled (Genesis 21: 12).
He did it because he trusted the Lord with all his heart. He believed that if he acknowledged God by obedience, God would make his paths straight and take care of him.
What Does It Mean to Trust the Lord with All Your Heart? Threat
A life of obedience requires faith. That’s because obedience often looks like it will result in harm and loss. If we’re going to acknowledge God by being obedient, we must trust Him to make our paths straight, and not lean on our own understanding.
Obedience often looks like it will be our undoing. And that nothing good will come of it. But by faith we do it anyway, leaning on God to protect and take care of us.
This is exactly what Abraham did. And why he is hailed as the father of faith.
To read another post related to What Does It Mean to Trust the Lord with All Your Heart, see A Demon Possessed Man and the Price of Deliverance.