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I bet that a lot of people would say that Proverb 3:5-6 is their life verse. Is it yours? Do you have it underlined in your Bible? You probably have it memorized: <\/p>\nI bet that a lot of people would say that Proverb 3:5-6 is their life verse. Is it yours? Do you have it underlined in your Bible? You probably have it memorized: <\/p>\n
\n<\/strong> <\/p>\n
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.<\/strong> <\/p>\n
<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n
Proverb 3:5-6 is a promise that you’ve just got to know. Let’s take it a phrase at a time. <\/p>\n
“Trust in the Lord with all your heart”<\/strong> is obviously an exhortation not to doubt. When you trust in the Lord with all your heart, you’re making a tangible choice not to let unbelief eat away at your soul. You’re confident in Jesus and jumping in with both feet. <\/p>\n
The next phrase will help you know: “…Do not lean on your own understanding.”<\/strong> You can’t trust in the Lord with all your heart if you’re leaning on your own understanding. <\/p>\n
I’d like to think I trust the Lord like that right now, James, but how can I be sure I do?<\/em> <\/p>\n
Maybe you know some things. You’ve been around the block, you know how things work, you know how to get it done. There’s nothing wrong with that. It’s good, in fact. The problem is, are you leaning on those things<\/em> when you hit a crisis? Are you confident in your own ability to get out of tight spots? Do you say anything like, “I know how to fix this. I’ve been through this before. I’m going to get on this right now.” Yeah, that’s not great. Don’t lean on your own understanding. <\/p>\n
Well, what then?<\/em> “In all your ways acknowledge Him…”<\/strong> In every choice, acknowledge God. You might be able to handle that situation by yourself, but if you’re like me, you don’t just want to get out of it, you want to please God in it. So in all your ways, you’re going to put Him first. <\/p>\n
Let’s put in practice. Suppose you run into financial problems. Or you lose your job. Or you lose the big account. The current price of gas and the crazy volatility on Wall Street don’t look too promising, either. Your budget is so tight you don’t know how you’re going to pay the bills. <\/p>\n
Humanly speaking, if you were leaning on your own understanding you’d be like, We’re going to tighten the belt around here, baby. No more money to charity. We can’t help our little Compassion Child anymore; she’s going to have to take care of herself. We’re not giving at church either; they seem to be doing fine.<\/em> <\/p>\n
Now, it’s not wrong to be wise in how you spend your money, but if you think you’re going to just gut it out, you’re leaning on your own understanding. Instead say, we’re going to keep our commitments, including our tithe, and we’re going to trust in the Lord with all our hearts.<\/em> We’re going to believe that the 90 percent we’re left with–with God’s help–is more than 100 percent on our own without God. That’s what we are when we leave God out: we’re on our own. That might be how we got in this spot, but that’s not how we’re going to get out of it. We’re going to put God first in our life and trust Him to keep His promises. <\/p>\n
Don’t you think God knows how much you have? Don’t you think God sees your situation? Wasn’t it God Himself who said through the prophet in Malachi 3:10, “Bring the full tithes into the storehouse. . . . And thereby put me to the test . . . if will not open the windows of heaven for you and pour down for you a blessing until there is no more need.”<\/strong> “Just try Me on that one,” God says. “Test Me and see if I’m not faithful.” Here’s your chance to discover the amazing promise God gives to those who totally trust Him. <\/p>\n
\u00a9 2008 Walk in the Word. <\/b><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
I bet that a lot of people would say that Proverb 3:5-6 is their life verse. Is it yours? Do you have it underlined in your Bible? You probably have it memorized: Trust in the Lord with all your heart, and do not lean on your own understanding. In all your ways acknowledge him,…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"twitterCardType":"","cardImageID":0,"cardImage":"","cardTitle":"","cardDesc":"","cardImageAlt":"","cardPlayer":"","cardPlayerWidth":0,"cardPlayerHeight":0,"cardPlayerStream":"","cardPlayerCodec":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-3583","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/purposedriven.ca\/wiki\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3583","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/purposedriven.ca\/wiki\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/purposedriven.ca\/wiki\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/purposedriven.ca\/wiki\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/purposedriven.ca\/wiki\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=3583"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/purposedriven.ca\/wiki\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3583\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/purposedriven.ca\/wiki\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=3583"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/purposedriven.ca\/wiki\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=3583"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/purposedriven.ca\/wiki\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=3583"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}