You may not understand God's requests

Proverbs 3:5 Trust in the Lord with all your heart, and lean NOT on your own understanding; in all your ways acknowledge Him and He will direct your paths.

There are times I live the first sentence of this scripture backwards. It comes out like this: Trust in the Lord with all YOUR understanding and lean NOT on your own heart. God does speak to me in my heart. I do hear Him. Many times what I hear does not make logical sense, it passes my human understanding . This leads me to question, Was it really God? I have learned it does not have to make sense to me to really be God.

Here is an example. When I was living in NC God spoke to me in my spirit to go talk to my pastor about how I could help married couples who were experiencing infidelity. At the time I was not a counselor but had walked through the experience years earlier in my own marriage and knew how to over come the damage. I knew this pastor only as an acquaintance.

I made the appointment to see him. I had to take my daughter, Ashley who was two at the time. I told my pastor I knew the Lord wanted me to come and talk to him but did not know exactly why. I felt awkward as I spoke especially when he paid more attention to my daughter than to what I was saying. At the end of the appointment I tried to sum it up by saying, "Well I do not know why God wanted me to come and tell you this but if you have a couple in your church who is experiencing infidelity sent them to me. I have walked through it and know the keys to overcoming. The only time he was fully engaged with me was when he asked this question, "How can one ever establish trust once it has been broken?" I told him you have to trust God not your spouse. You have to set up healthy boundaries to allow the hurt spouse to feel safe and you have to make sure the adulteror is truly repentant and seeking professional help and has a structure of strong accountability."

Long story short God asked me to go back to see him 6 more times. I did not obey due to my pride, i.e. I thought, "He is going to think I am nuts if I keep coming back to see him." Because I relied on my own understanding, I did not trust God and did not go back to see my pastor. I dismissed it saying this must not be God if it does not make sense to me. Months later it was revealed to our church that this very pastor was having an affair. He ended up getting a divorce, lost his church, and it took years for that church to get healed of the situation.

God had picked little old me to be his spokes person. Instead of trusting God with my heart, and listening to Him, I listened to my insecure heart and leaned on my own understanding. Just think of the message that would have sent to my pastor if I had gone back 6 more times saying, "I don't know why I am here but God sent me again to tell you if you know anyone who is in an adulterous affair I can help." We will never know what impact God could have had through me in that particular situation.

In Isaiah 55:8-9 God tells us our thoughts are not His thoughts and our ways are not his ways. Let me encourage you, if you feel God is nudging you to do something, don't lean on your own understanding. Just do it. It may not be what others want you to do. It is so important to be obedient and set boundaries to enable you to do exactly what God has for you whether you understand it or not. Remember if God asks you to do something it is always in love and lines up to the words in the bible.

I am always asking myself, "I have the knowledge of the word but how do I apply it to work in my life?" I know step one is to trust Him with all our heart and lean not to my own understanding. Step two is in all your ways acknowledge him. "My ways" are the paths, the roads or the decisions I make on a daily basis. The key word is to acknowledge Him and then you will get the results of Him directing your paths. Yada is the Hebrew word for acknowledge. It can be translated into "know". The meaning is to know through observation, investigation, reflection, or firsthand experience. But the highest level of yada is in the direct intimate contact. If we are to get it right we need to know the information and the information giver.

If we want to have God direct our paths we must have direct intimate contact with Him on a daily basis. If we are too busy to be with Him, to listen to Him, to wait on Him, to get to know Him through his word or to pray to Him then we need to set up healthy boundaries so nothing steals our time with Him.

Pray about what to say yes to and what to say no to. Sometimes we get stuck into helping people because they are needy. Make sure you are doing what God wants you to do not what others expect you to do.

Suggestion for the day: Take the energy you use worrying about what others will think of you if you do not live your life trying to please them and devote that energy to pleasing God.


Mimwrite