Proverbs 3:5-6 English Standard Version

5 Trust in the Lord with all your heart, and do not lean on your own understanding.

6 In all your ways acknowledge him, and he will make straight your paths.

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The Lord led me to this passage to talk about trust. The title has been changed to acknowledgements at His direction. I have no way to prove that, you will just have to trust me.

I acknowledge Him for setting me straight on what trust really means.

I had a plan in mind to write about trusting God and why we can. I will not go into my thoughts because as the proverb says, “don’t lean on it”. Leaning is using something to support your stance. In this I do not have a leg to stand on. 

Trust means nothing if it doesn’t lead you in the right direction. We have to be willing to seek God, hear God, believe God and then go the way He has chosen.

Trust is meaningless without an action that follows. He can make the path straight but we still have to choose to walk in it. That choice indicates we love the Lord enough to give up our own plans and follow His lead. Loving Him in doing His will is an acknowledgement even if we do not say it.

It is the brother that said he would not go and then did rather than the one who said he would go and then did not. Saying a thing does not make it so.

I would like to think that we all want to walk in God’s will. My personal experience says that discovering God’s perfect will is difficult and takes a good deal of prayer, study and most importantly, some heart searching.

It is rather easy to tell ourselves that God agrees with us rather than searching out the scriptures to hear from God. It takes time and effort to search out the truth through God’s word. The Word however is where we will find God speaking to us in truth and spirit.

John 4:23-24 English Standard Version (ESV) 23 But the hour is coming, and is now here, when the true worshipers will worship the Father in spirit and truth, for the Father is seeking such people to worship him. 24 God is spirit, and those who worship him must worship in spirit and truth.”

Ezekiel 42:20 English Standard Version (ESV) He measured it on the four sides. It had a wall around it, 500 cubits long and 500 cubits broad, to make a separation between the holy and the common.

We will find that the scriptures will often speak to issues that are part of our personal experience. If we want to talk about those walls coming down in our tale of our kitchen yesterday, here is a verse that talks directly to the issue of walls being an obstacle that separate us.

The vision from Ezekiel concerned a new temple that has not been built.

Ezekiel 40:4 English Standard Version (ESV) And the man said to me, “Son of man, look with your eyes, and hear with your ears, and set your heart upon all that I shall show you, for you were brought here in order that I might show it to you. Declare all that you see to the house of Israel.”

While the words of his prophecy were meant for Israel, they contain truths meant for all of us.

When we put up walls they separate us in ways that hinder communion and communication.

God saw to it that my wife and I could have open lines of communication in our home. That is not to say that we haven’t put up walls in our hearts that become barriers to open communication.

That is a common thing and not holy. A marriage is a holy covenant between a man and wife. Keeping that covenant is important. Keeping those walls down is important.

Walls indicate there is a lack of trust and when we cannot trust each other we lose the ability to help one another as God intended. We were put together to be helpmates. 

What those walls consist of is a very personal matter. Going into any kind of detail about what those things might be would create a list that might not include the ones for a reader. That might lead to ignoring theirs because it is not on the list.

Any wall is a barrier to communion and what it is made of is irrelevant to the damage it does in a relationship. We all have to look within ourselves and be honest about our trust issues and the love that we have for one another.

We may hide the wall but trust is damaged and when that is true then how we love one another is affected. That will be felt and no amount of hiding is going to change that.

Tear down the walls to regain the trust.