Life… every time I think I have a handle on it, God speaks to me as if to say “Really?”
Twice this morning God brought to my thoughts Proverbs 3:5-6
Trust in the Lord with all thine heart; and lean not unto thine own understanding. In all thy ways acknowledge him, and he shall direct thy paths.
Trust… I think I trust Him, but then I’m not sure if I even get it. If I “trust” Him, why am I always trying to fix life? Why can’t I just wait for Him to open doors instead of picking the lock? Seriously? That’s a good thought. It’s just a shame I don’t take my own advice. I’m still blaming Eve. If she had trusted God and not eaten of the tree of knowledge of good and evil, my life would be so less complicated. Just think about it… not having to live life by trial and error. That goofy fruit really messed things up, rather than having the mind of God, I now have the mind of me… that’s seldom good.
Lean…What must it have been like to literally lean into the bosom of God? I think of the Apostle John who said in John 13:23 “Now there was leaning on Jesus’ bosom one of his disciples, whom Jesus loved.”That always cracks me up! I read it as if he says… “the one whom Jesus loved… He liked the others. But I was His favorite.” But how wonderful would it have been to have sat with Jesus face to face and had a conversation where the Lord’s advice wasn’t a guessing game as I so often feel it is now. I know… the Holy Spirit is within me, and if I was really the Jesus Chick I’d know what He wanted me to do. Well you’re right and I do know what He wants me to do, He wants me to trust and lean but not upon my understanding, upon His. It’s the human perception that causes the error… that doggone smarty tree again. The one of good and evil.
Hindsight is always 20/20. God wasn’t trying to keep Adam and Eve from enjoying life; He was sparing them the full weight of reality. Reality bites. Reality is where lust replaces satisfaction. What God had for Adam and Eve was perfect and what Satan introduced them to was doubt. Genesis 3:1b “Yea, hath God said, Ye shall not eat of every tree of the garden?”
That same lingering doubt is in my mind today… Is that really what God wants me to do? Its then that I must
Acknowledge… Just admit that you can’t go it alone. Adam and Eve were not created to walk in the garden alone, they were created to walk in fellowship with God. He had their path laid out for them until Satan entered the scene and created paths, in the plural sense. God’s way was and still is “one way.” John 14:6 – Jesus saith unto him, I am the way, the truth, and the life: no man cometh unto the Father, but by me.
In order to get back into fellowship with Him, He created that path home which I took in 1996 when I acknowledged that I couldn’t go it alone and that I needed Jesus in my life. I still have self-will, which is what gets me into trouble and causes confusion. Life isn’t a guessing game when it comes to decision making. We don’t have Jesus face to face, but we do have Him heart to heart. If I’m not hearing the answer to the question I’m asking, then my heart is not in tune to God’s heart and I need to tune it up through the Word of God and prayer.
I hope today finds you in tune!