Trust in the Lord
Trust in the Lord with all your heart,
And lean not on your own understanding (Proverbs 3:5).
As with all well-known verses from the Bible, there is always the danger we can take them for granted. We need to pause, consider and reflect upon the things God would teach us and the desire He has that we benefit from what His word promises. “Trust in the Lord” is a key theme of Proverbs. Trust, in a general sense, is widely expressed in our lives. We trust ourselves, trust our friends, trust our families, trust in money, trust governments, and sometimes trust strangers. Think of the many times you have asked directions from complete strangers and, without knowing them at all, you accept the advice they give. Trust is part of human behaviour. People express trust in so many things and so many people, but not in the Person who gave us the extraordinary capacity to trust. Proverbs teaches us about placing our complete trust in God and knowing the joy of daily expressing confidence in the God who loves us. The writer first connects this to our hearts: “Trust in the Lord with all your heart”; then, by implication, with our minds: “and lean not on your own understanding”.
Proverbs also warns us about what not to trust. In 11:28 we are taught not to trust in money: “He who trusts in his riches will fall.” People think wealth and material possessions are the routes to happiness. Their happiness is so dependent on good events – good happenings. Proverbs was written by a king who did not ask God for wealth, but for wisdom. In Proverbs 16:20, we learn that trusting God leads to a state of happiness:
He who heeds the word wisely will find good,
And whoever trusts in the Lord, happy is he.
Our happiness is in a Person, Jesus Christ.
Trusting God is a learning experience. Each day is a fresh opportunity to live in fellowship with God and to build our trust in Him:
So that your trust may be in the Lord;
I have instructed you today, even you (22:19).
Every day brings new challenges and also repeated ones. God wants us to experience His presence and care for us through our faith and confidence in Him. In this way, God prospers us:
He who trusts in the Lord will be prospered (28:25).
Living by faith brings us spiritual, emotional and material blessing and contentment. Look at the faith Daniel and his friends had in God. Every part of their lives was blessed (Daniel 1). Paul writes from prison to the Philippians to say, “And my God shall supply all your need according to His riches in glory by Christ Jesus” (Philippians 4:19). Trusting in God gives us access to all His resources. And it teaches us not to be self-confident:
He who trusts in his own heart is a fool,
But whoever walks wisely will be delivered (Proverbs 28:26).
The Christian life is one of confident faith, not in ourselves, but in the One who never stops being our Saviour.
In Proverbs 29:25 we learn that, by trusting in the Lord, we are protected:
The fear of man brings a snare,
But whoever trusts in the Lord shall be safe.
We can trust and obey God’s word in the assurance that He will respond to our faith:
Every word of God is pure;
He is a shield to those who put their trust in Him (30:5).
In the words of Paul, “Above all, taking the shield of faith with which you will be able to quench all the fiery darts of the wicked one” (Ephesians 6:16). Trust and obey!
