Proverbs 3:5-6 (NKJV)

⁵ Trust in the Lord with all your heart,
And lean not on your own understanding;
⁶ In all your ways acknowledge Him,
And He shall direct your paths.

        That is the topic of the subject that God has placed on my heart today.  Do we actually take these verses to heart?  Or are they verses we quote to people when they are down to encourage them in a trial, but not apply them to our own lives?   With the trials I am facing in my life, I am wanting to share what these verses mean to me.  It is so easy to say this section of Scripture, however if we are honest with ourselves, many times all we are doing is lip service and mouthing these to others, instead of living them, and applying them to our lives.  God tells us that we need to Trust in the Lord with all your heart  but how many of us actually trust Him to meet our needs?   How many of us try to reason out and try to do things in our own strength?    How is it that in many churches that to be a Christian, you need to have a fat checkbook, or bottomless credit cards, otherwise you are ignored for not having money?  What ever happened to trusting God to provide our needs?   I am a firm believer that God wants all of us to examine ourselves and lay the things down in our lives that are causing us to not trust God with all our hearts.  

   Trust in the Lord with all your heart. This means that you trust God with every aspect of your life, from where you live, what you do for work, to what you eat and how you manage your finances, keeping God first in all these areas of life.  Many times I have seen Christians make such decisions without so much as a prayer and fast to God to see what God wants them to do in their lives.   God already knows our path, and what the next chapter in our lives hold, however we need to ask Him what He wants us to do, and not blindly live our lives pursuing things we want to pursue.   This is what God tells us in the second half of verse 5 'and lean not on your own understanding'   The sad thing is that often we lean on our own understanding instead of trusting God to take care of a situation.   By leaning on our own ways, strengths, and abilities we are basically telling God that we can handle things on our own strength, and we do not need Him.

             It is very easy to look at someones situation and give them advice on how they should handle that situation.  When that advice goes against what God says, it needs to be ignored, and God's Words on the subject needs to be obeyed.   I will give a personal example of this.  Currently in my life there is a lot of uncertainty at my job about having a job much longer.  For an outsider, the most logical answer would be to say "Time to update your resume and start looking for a new job, because it looks like God is closing the door, and you need to make sure you provide for your family".    After spending time in prayer and fasting, God told me to "Trust Him, and to not worry about what is going to happen, and that He knows my next step, and He will provide for me no matter what happens, whether my job stays or goes".  I started to look for a new job, because I was going off my understanding of this situation.  God stopped me in the middle of that and told me to wait on Him to officially close the current door at work before pursuing a new door.    This means for me that through all the uncertainty here, I am to wait for God to open the next door, and that door is not open yet, so stop trying to remedy the situation in my own strength.  That goes against my own understanding, but it does not go against  Trust in the Lord with all your heart.

      In my understanding when facing this uncertainty here at work, all I can think of in my understanding is: 'How am I going to pay my bills, and put food on the table, and provide for myself and my wife?"  The fact of the matter is that currently every month we are short financially, and that God currently provides the difference for us to live through people who are willing to allow God to use them to share the financial blessings they have been bestowed onto them.  My income alone is not enough to pay all our bills and put food on the table, or to fix items that break in the home.  Many will read what I stated above and also know that my wife Charlotte is not working a paying job, and those people are saying to themselves or to us that she needs to get off her lazy rear and get a job and help provide for the family financially.   These same people don't see how Charlotte is being used by god in her current role in life.  Charlotte is spending at least 20+ hours many weeks planning and working on our church's fall festival to share Christ with our community, nor do they see that God is working greatly on her spiritually, allowing her to have the time to be able to help others at church when they need someone to help out, whether it is cleaning, child care, teaching Sunday School at church, etc.   The critics also don't see my wife trusting God to meet our needs, nor do they really care to see the Godly woman she is growing into. They do not see her making sure I have dinner on the table almost every night when I get home, or the blessing she is to me to encourage me to serve God in the ways I have been called to serve HIM.  The critics don't see her ministering to others at church, and being willing to help where needed.  If Charlotte was working a job for 40 hours a week, she would not be able to serve in the ways she serves God.   All those that do not know the full situation can only focus on the fact Charlotte is not working a paying job, so she must be lazy, and then she gets compared to other people.   I say that they need to get the full picture before judging her. I share all of this because Charlotte is living out verse 6 In all your ways acknowledge Him, And He shall direct your paths..  Charlotte is allowing God to lead her and allowing Him to direct how she lives her life.  

       I realize that we do not look like traditional Christians.  I say to that statement GOOD! GREAT! I'M GLAD!  I don't want to look like those Christians that say they are Christians in lip service, but afraid to put their faith in what they say they believe in. Many of them are going down the path of the world, and are pursuing the things of the world, and not the things of the Lord.  I don't want anything that the world offers, and am tired of everyone wanting to keep up with those who have money.   I pray the following Scripture over my life:

Proverbs 30:7-9
Two things I request of You
(Deprive me not before I die):
 Remove falsehood and lies far from me;
Give me neither poverty nor riches—
Feed me with the food allotted to me;
 Lest I be full and deny You,
And say, “Who is the Lord?”
Or lest I be poor and steal,
And profane the name of my God.

   I want to close out with a a couple Christian songs that has really been blessing me lately, and speaks to me on this subject.  The first one is Jason Gray - Good to be Alive

The second song is my favorite song of all-time.  It is Paul Colman - The One Thing

If anything I said offended you, then you need to go to God, and ask Him to show you what is causing you to be offended, and ask him to overcome being offended, as my intent is to share what God is doing in my life.

In Christ,

Kevin