Straight Paths

The Proverbs section of my One-Year reading contained a passage that I have heard more times than I can count:

“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)

I have been taught to live this way, and have grown up doing my best to put away trust in myself, in my patterns and habits, because that can ultimately fail. I know that I will continue to grow and learn to live that way for the rest of my life. Reading through the book of Genesis provides examples of human beings trusting in their own understanding, and the consistantly bad results that follow. But it also reminds us how putting trust in the Lord, trusting in who He is, going where he calls, even living as a stranger and a foreigner, is never something a person regrets.

The end results of human beings putting their hope, faith, and trust in their own understanding and experiences are on display on an almost daily basis in the news cycle, on social media, and everywhere else. It only ever creates hurt and empowers evil. After reading that passage from Proverbs again, I prayed that leaders of the United States and across the world stop leaning on their own understanding, and collapsing as a result of their own folly and failure. There’s no guardrail protecting them from the edge — and their paths veer off into darkness, greed and violence. I prayed (and am praying!) that they would learn to trust in the Lord, and His will, His path-straightening and way-directing, that the following generation of representatives, Senators, Prime Minsters and Presidents would continue after them and totally abandon the destructive repercussions of leaning on human understanding.

I am continuing to pray that 2020 is the year that kind of change explodes into view.