Lord, Direct my Path!

Proverb 3:5-6 says:
"Trust in the Lord with all your heart,
And lean not on your own understanding;
In all your ways acknowledge Him,
and He shall direct your paths."

An Olympic teammate of mine used to sign
this verse when she signed autographs
and this was one of the first verses
that I memorized. I think most people
who believe in God (and many who may
not even have a personal relationship
with Him) would want God to direct their
paths. We know that there are a lot of
ups and downs we go through in life and
I want to stay on the path that God has
prepared for me so that I am protected
by Him. That means when it gets hard, He
knows exactly where I'm at and He'll give
me the strength to get through it. When
things are going well I want to be close
to Him and let others know that God is
the giver of all good things.

I just wanted to point out that there are
conditions with this verse, just like with
many of God's promises in the Bible. There
is God's part, but there is also our part.
God's part is that He will direct our paths,
but only after we have been obedient with
His directions. In this verse, we see that
we need to trust in the Lord in ALL our ways,
not just sometimes. We need to trust Him and
turn to Him no matter what is going on in our
lives. We need to rely on Him for truth, guidance
and strength. We need to trust that He knows
what is best for those who love Him, even when
it doesn't look like it's best because things are
so hard. Look at what the disciples went through
in the Bible (prison, beatings, mocking) and yet
they knew it was worth it to proclaim God's truth
wherever they went.
We also need to "lean not on our own understanding."
That means that we need to ask for God's wisdom.
We need to trust and look to Him because we will
never understand all of God's ways. The Bible
tells us that "God's ways are higher than our
ways" and He sees the BIG picture when we can only
see a tiny spot in the picture. When we ask God
what He is trying to teach us through our experiences,
He will reveal it to us. Remember to ask Him, and
expect Him to answer.
Finally, we need to acknowledge Him in ALL our ways.
Wow, this is a hard thing to do, especially in a society
that is trying to kick God out of everything. We need
to speak up when given the opportunity to bring glory
to God, but we also acknowledge Him with how we talk, what
we watch on TV, what music we listen to and how we dress,
among other things. God will not direct our paths when
we are choosing our own paths. We need to obey His Word
and we will be greatly blessed (even in the hard stuff)!