Which Way Do I Go?

"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." Proverbs 3:5-6, NKJV

Life’s way too short to ever head down the wrong road. Why? Because it takes so much extra energy and effort to turn around rather than just take the right path in the first place. God’s got a straight path for every one of us; He always has the best route to get from point A to point B. I love the simple plan that God lays out for us in the opening verse of this devo in terms of following His direction for our lives. Let’s walk this out together: 1. Trust in the Lord It all starts with us trusting in Him more than we trust in ourselves. We are taught early on to trust ourselves, our ideas or even our instincts. But that’s not always the best. It’s best when we put our trust in the Lord. He sees the big picture. He sees things that we don’t see. He sees the roadblocks, the things in the road that will cause us to be delayed. When we choose to trust God with our decisions and the direction, it opens up the door for His guidance. It’s called faith. It’s when we get to the point when we seek God’s direction rather than coming up with our own. In John 16:13 Jesus says that the Holy Spirit will actually, “show us things to come.” He helps us to see further and better than we can see by ourselves. And this leads us to point number two. 2. Lean not on your own understanding. This just means that we need to learn to “lean into God” more than we lean on our own brainpower. The way we lean into God is by presenting every part of our lives before the Lord in prayer. It’s something that we need to do daily through our quiet times, through journaling or those times we take extra time to prayer through our decisions. The Good Shepherd does speak to His sheep, but we have to be willing to listen. This brings us to point number three. 3. In all your ways acknowledge Him. This is what happens when we bring our “issues” before the Lord. We’re just acknowledging our dependence upon the Lord. And by the way, that’s not for His benefit, it’s for ours. Because He knows that we need Him, we just need to consistently remind ourselves that we’re helpless without Him. Philippians 4:6 is a great reminder that we don’t have to worry that we’re making a wrong decision as long as we bring everything to Him in prayer. This brings us to point number four. 4. And He shall direct your paths. This is our confidence. If we will trust in the Lord, lean not on our own understanding, and always acknowledge Him, we’ll stay on the right path. We won’t get off course. We can trust that He knows more than us and that the road we’re on will result in us staying in His perfect will for our lives.